


A Handful Of Stars

by franksmile



Series: Ballato, Way and Westwood's Supernatural Investigation Agency [1]
Category: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Blood, F/M, Friendship, M/M, Multi, Pain, Romance, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Soulmates, Supernatural Creatures, Supernatural Elements, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-03-30 10:46:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 45,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3933865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/franksmile/pseuds/franksmile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oh,” Pete says, after he flips past the Seraph and opens it to a page with a drawing of Mikey, who standing even taller and thinner than usual, his mouth quirked in a small smirk. The place he’s standing in is divided up the middle, one side a dark, distorted graveyard that is made even creepier by the way Gerard has drawn in the light, with dark, harsh shadowing, and Pete runs his fingers over the giant full moon in the back, and for some reason thinks 'a handful of stars.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> *This story is completed: I cannot stress this enough! I will upload twice a week for six weeks until it's all here.*
> 
> Thank you so so much to my beautiful betas and cheerleaders. Thank you Lily, for editing this and reading it. Thank you Emily, for yelling at me to write so you could read this, and for telling me that it was acceptable/life ruining. No thanks to you for not helping me beta at all. Thank you to the Pete and Mikey in this story; I was unsure about you but I fell in love with you both, together.
> 
> And many thanks to my beautiful readers; this is nothing without you.

**2005**

It's been a little over a week now, and Pete's being wearing the same facial expression for a very large portion of it. She knows it's normal, but Clara can't help but worry. He's just turned eleven, but birthday celebrations had been thrown aside in favour of sitting by hospital beds and clutching his grandmother's frail hands. Now he's spending it going to her funeral. They’re definitely going to have to skip the party this year.

He sits at the breakfast table, swirling the milk around in his bowl dejectedly. He's only eaten three mouthfuls in the last ten minutes and they really should be leaving, but Clara doesn't want to rush him. His face is slack, his eyes unfocused and vacant, like he's not really seeing the piece of soggy cereal he's now poking gently with his spoon. He's beginning to disappear into the chair; his little shoulders slumped over into himself. His feet can't reach the floor by a mile, but he's not swinging his feet wildly like usual. They just hang there, swaying ever so slightly.

Clara puts her washed bowl into their last box, which is basically just filled with random shit like their toothbrushes or her special blanket or the teddy called Fred that Pete always pretends he's not still mildly attached to and has been sneakily carting everywhere this week. She found him this morning sleeping on the floor his grandmothers room, curled up with the bear in question, and she's going to pretend now that that scene hadn't made her cry. It was only a little. Okay. A lot.

 

"C'mon, sunshine, I've gotta put that bowl in the box. Finish up."

"I'm not hungry, Clary, can we just chuck it out?" Pete’s face doesn’t really change, but his tone goes hopeful and he makes his eyes bigger as he looks up at her.

Clara sighs, quietly, so Pete doesn't hear her. "Can't you have a little more?"

Pete looks down at the bowl like it’s a really hard puzzle he can’t solve. "No."

She doesn't push him. She's sure a good parent would since Pete hasn't really eaten in the last four days, but Clara's only been a 'mother' for a week and she might be technically two hundred and eighteen years old but she's still a seventeen year old in a lot of ways. She's got a bit to go before she can even measure up to being a mother figure at all, let alone a good one.

"Let's go, kid." She says, holding out a hand, the box tucked under her arm. Pete only comes up to her waist. He's rather small for an eleven year old, but Clara knows he's only going to grow to like, 5'4, so he hasn't really got far to go. She figures he's doing quite well.

Clara lets Pete hoist himself up into the red pickup truck himself and clamber over the boxes. She tries not to wince as he catches his good jeans on a piece of tape sticking up and it rips off loudly. A whole bunch of thread comes out, but she just ignores it. They only have to last the day. There will be holes in the knees in a week and scrapes on the skin underneath a week later. She’ll just heal it over for him. She fed last week when she’d left Pete alone for a while in the hospital with his grandmother, Jennifer.

He leans into her, partly because he wanted to sit in the middle and so there's a bunch of boxes on the passenger side, pushing him over even more, but she's pretty sure he's doing it a little on purpose too. He's fiddling with the buttons on his shirt, bottom lip jutting out just a little. She smooths down her navy dress and hopes for the millionth time it's not too short, because it's the best dress she has (aka the only dark one she has that doesn't have provocative cutouts or a low back).

"Clara?”

She starts the car, letting it roar away for a second before she releases the handbrake and changes to reverse with some difficulty. She’s too small and weedy for the size of this car. She stands at 5’10, but her arms are thin and her body has seen better days. She’s been too busy for the last few years being basically a full time nanny to keep up the workout regime she used to have going when they were all working for the agency.  

"Mm?"

There's so much shit in the back of the truck she can't actually see the road behind her. She spent all the money on the funeral because apparently caskets cost more than pawning all her nice jewellery can cover, so now she can't afford a moving van, even with the wad of cash Jennifer left her. All the money she saved from working for the agency had run out long ago. Jennifer had been paying her by letting her eat her food and stay out in her house. She prays to God that there aren't any children behind her and backs out blindly.

Pete fidgets in the seat next to her. She grits her teeth and tries to ignore him. She’s always hated his tendency to do that; she has to constantly remind herself he’s a child now and it cannot be helped. "I don't want to go."

She tugs roughly at the gearstick again; it's starting to stick. She's not sure if Pete means he doesn't want to move or he just doesn't want to go to the funeral. Either way, she agrees. This is the best place she’s ever lived, besides the mansion they temporarily borrowed/broken into when the Way brother’s aunt went away and Mikey had been able to find the spare key hidden in the greenhouse.

"I know. Me neither, kid."

She turns the radio on but doesn't really hear it. She doesn't even like this station anyway. She doesn't bother to change it. Might as well have shit music to match a shit day. Her fingers itch for a cigarette as she turns the wheel, but she's only got one and half packs left and she's got a kid to feed now. Pete reaches over and turns the radio back off.

"You don't even like this station." He grumbles. If she doesn’t like it, neither does Pete. He’s got some good music taste, except for that trashy rap he’s growing fond of. He’s expansive, at least, she’ll give him that, and Clara thinks that’s never a bad thing.

"No," she answers, looking over at him with a small smile. "No, I don't."

It starts to rain as soon as she's parked the truck in the church carpark. She liked this church. It's small but well looked after. Everyone here was kind. She found a home. The pastor had recommended to Pete's grandmother that Clara could help her with her bad joints and looking after Pete in exchange for a roof over her head. Pete's grandmother hadn't realised that Clara wanted the looking after Pete bit the most, but it all worked out. Clara could help with the joint problem a lot more than the average person. And now, after two years, she has a funeral to go to and a kid to look after permanently. Her fingers itch for her phone just thinking about it. She’s called Lindsey at least five times in the last week, each time freaking out about something else. Lindsey just always says the same thing, and she’s getting more and more impatient. Clara doesn’t give a shit. She’s allowed to freak out. Lindsey didn’t just adopt a child. Her only job in this situation is listening to Clara having a “being forced into being an adult” panic, and that’s easy. Clara’s not sure if she can do it all alone, but Lindsey said this was how it was meant to be, that Clara was going to be the one to find Pete again. And she was. She was the one that told Jennifer she liked her handbag, that accidentally got herself invited around for tea and almost choked on her water when Pete Wentz, admittedly a lot smaller since he was only nine years old, had appeared at the dinner table, complete with messy brown curls and the exact same grin that ensured mischief was coming.

She leans over and pulls the bear out of the top of the box next to Pete. "Here," she says, plopping it in his lap. "Take Fred in with you, no one is even going to notice, okay?"

Pete takes a long time to clamber back over the boxes and fix up the button in his shirt that he's put in the wrong hole, but in the end he leaves Fred in the car. Eleven year old pride is a fragile thing. At least, Clara guesses. She hasn’t been eleven in, oh, two hundred and something years. The rules were a little different in the 1700’s. He reaches over and clings onto Clara's hand like she might be able to replace Fred, at least for now. She wraps a hand around the cross on her neck and says a quick prayer that she can do a good job with all this.

The funeral isn't anything fancy. Clara squeezes Pete's hand when he cries and doesn't do anything else. She pretends she isn't crying as well.

The church has provided a reception for Jennifer, knowing Clara can’t afford it, but she can tell Pete isn't enjoying it. He's been giving her the look, the one they've got perfected and share whenever they are out somewhere. It means “Oh my god, this is so boring. Who are these people anyway? It's your turn to get us out of here.” When it’s Pete’s turn he usually does the big, puppy dog eyes and tugs on Jennifer’s hand a little. When it’s Clara’s, she’ll gesture to Pete and he’ll feign sleepiness, and Jennifer will coo and usher them out.

She can’t do those things now. She now attempts to do all the adult things that she's never done before, like shake hands and smile like she's got everything together. Then she steers Pete out of there, following him down the steps to the deserted parking lot.

"Wanna run?"

She grins at him, reaching out for his hand. They always do this. After church, they run all the way to one side of the parking lot and back. By the time they're done Pete's grandmother has surfaced from the gaggle of gossiping old women and Clara will help her to the car and get in the driver’s seat and they leave, probably stopping at the bakery on the way home.

Today she's parked at the other end of the car park. The rain has stopped, but there are puddles everywhere. Pete smiles up at her, taking her hand. It’s a little weak, but she’ll take it. She steps out of her heels and they take off, wind whipping through her neat bun and loosening it. She doesn't even care when Pete stops in a puddle and splashes, giggles filtering up through the sound of sloshing water. Water soaks up his pant legs. In the end, after Pete kicking muddy water at her despite her protests, she joins him in the alarmingly large puddle. He soaks her dress from the waist down, even scooping up water and throwing it at her with that same mischievous grin. 

She doesn't care. Pete watches her from the ground with dripping pant legs and a shirt dotted with muddy wet patches as she clambers precariously up into the back of the truck and over the top of the towering stacks of boxes. She can feel her skirt coming up and her demure hairstyle is about an inch from falling out but she thinks maybe they are at least back to looking more like themselves. She yanks out a towel from a box placed stupidly low in the pile stack and pegs it at Pete.

"Dry off, sunshine," she says, climbing back down shakily. "We've gotta go."

All Pete manages to do with the towel is fuck up the bits of hair she's tried to control with gel and a comb, so she just yanks out a hoodie from her suitcase (his is sitting under four boxes full of kitchenware; more evidence of crappy planning) and makes him at least take his shirt and wet shoes off.

"This hoodie is too big even for me, Pete. It'll be like a dress on you, c’mon, you can take your pants off too."

His eleven year old shame comes back. "No, yuck, I'm not taking my pants off in front of you. You’re a girl." He says girl in the same tone Frank says spiders.

Clara visibly rolls her eyes at him and spreads the towel out on the seat instead. It’s not like she’s hasn’t known the kid since he was nine. She once had to help him bath when he was really sick and he vomited all over himself and his bed.

She pulls her threadbare blanket – the one that she's had for at least twenty years – out of the box labelled random shit in Pete’s shaky scribble. She wishes he hadn’t taken her so literally when she told him offhandedly what was in there. She didn’t realise he was going around with a purple glitter pen and labelling everything. "You can put this over your legs, Pete, please, I can't get to your luggage and if you get sick we're fucked."

He makes a face like he wants to say "swear jar" but he only ever did that with Jennifer around anyway. He’s starting to work “shit” into sentences slyly and test Clara’s tolerance for it, but she figures there’s worse things he could be doing than sneaking in swear words into general conversation. He hasn’t started stealing her smokes yet.

Pete curls up with the blanket and awkwardly tugs his pants off underneath, even though the hoodie hangs to his shins when he’s sitting down. She turns around and lights a smoke. She hopes none of the parents come out of the church and see her, barefoot and hair a mess, smoking with a child wearing nothing but a hoodie and underwear. She already feels like a failure. She feels the need to call Lindsey and wail about it down the phone to her, but she resists the urge. Now is not the time. She can do that later, when she’s lying in bed and the panic really starts.

When she turns back around, Pete’s got his legs tucked up inside the hoodie and she can see Fred’s balding ear sticking out from under the blanket. Pete’s hair sticks up wildly. _That’s my favourite hoodie and it’s going to get stretched._ She thinks resignedly. She climbs in and starts the car. It struggles a little but it eventually evens out to a steady roar.

“We’re going to be okay.” She tells him.

 “We will.” He answers, long after they pull out of the parking lot and onto the highway. “Grandma said to trust you. I do.” He says, curled up and eyes drooping. Clara smiles.

“Thank you, Jennifer.” She murmurs, looking up at the sky. “Thank you.”

**2010**

Pete wakes up from what was a patchy sleep twenty minutes before his alarm is supposed to go off. He hasn’t closed the curtains properly because he likes the way the moon lights up his room at night, but now he’s paying the price for that. The morning light is filtering through his dirty window and leaking through his scrunched up eyelids, making him shitty before he can even shove back his sheets. He trips over the mass of cords he’s got running through his room – lamp, laptop, phone, hair straightener – and tugs on a pair of pyjama pants that have been living on his floor for two weeks longer than they should’ve been.

Pete hates this house. It’s one of the worst ones they’ve had so far. It’s too big and too small all at once. There’s only one bathroom and Clara takes forever in there, putting all that shit on her face and doing her hair. It’s almost been nine months since they moved in, and there are still boxes in corners of rooms, waiting fruitlessly to be unpacked. Pete keeps tripping over them. He’s always kicking at the one full of soccer trophies on the fourth stair. He doesn’t want to unpack it. He hates being _that_ kid.

But they don’t have enough furniture to fill all the rooms and it still feels empty, waiting to be filled, and Pete just knows that even if they unpacked all the boxes it would never be full. It makes him feel even more like they are a sad excuse for a family.

He can hear her making coffee in the kitchen, and he peeks in. She’s got two mugs on the counter and a full pot of coffee brewing. Pete runs in and wraps her body up into his, making her squeak. She’s still taller than him. He’s now wider. They shouldn’t fit, but somehow they do. Pete has a working theory that it’s part of whatever magical shit Clara’s got going on inside her that’s kept her seventeen since he was nine. 

She bats him away, making a lot of complaining noises. Pete tries to kiss her cheek and has to dodge a slap in the face.

“Can’t even show a girl some love.” He grumbles.

She shoves the coffee at him. “Finish that and I’ll make you another. Maybe you won’t be shuffling around the halls like a dead person today.”

“Okay, _Mum_.” He mocks, gulping down the coffee.

“Piss off, Pete, you’ve never actually complained about me mothering you when I’m in the middle of doing it. Go do your hair, quickly, I wanna curl mine.” She swats him away.

Pete doesn’t shower, because the shower is broken and they can’t afford to fix it. He stands in front of the mirror and stares at himself as he waits for the straightener to heat up. He’s got awful bags under his swollen eyes and he needs to shave. His hair sticks up in, like, five directions. In all honesty, Pete looks like shit. And he hasn’t even got the energy to care.

He’s been sleeping like shit lately. He’s been having these dreams. More like nightmares, actually, but whatever, Pete’s not a pussy. He’s going to call them dreams. He always wakes up sweaty, even if it’s freezing in his room; the sheets twisted between his legs and clenched in stiff fingers, his chest heaving short, shallow breaths. He’s not even thinking clearly until a few minutes after, and by then the basic plot of the dreams has slunk back into his unconscious and he can’t remember anything. Maybe a sliver; silky thin hands and pointy hipbones, and this burning image of claws tearing away at flesh, but that’s it.

The whole situation is frustrating. How can he stop being scared of something when he’s not sure what it is? Pete's sure he's been whimpering or moaning or some other embarrassing shit he's not going to mention to anyone else, and he'd really like to stop. Never mind the fact his house is basically empty and no one but Clara can hear him. She sometimes comes in to his room after he’s had one and lies down with him, weaving an arm around his waist in the dark.

Besides puncturing his ego, it’s not really traumatising him in any way since he can’t actually remember anything, except it’s stuffing up his already fucked up sleep schedule and Pete would just like one night where he doesn't have to wake up at two shaking and sweaty. Especially after he’s just spent four hours lying awake praying to whoever is up there that he could just shut his mind off and get some fucking sleep. Insomnia. It’s killing him.

So it’s the understatement of the year that Pete is a little frustrated. He's been writing some good stuff after the dreams in the notepad he keeps shoved under all the crap on his bedside table, some really messed up stuff that he thinks sounds like he wrote on a bad trip or something. When he reads it back in the morning, stuff about holy ghosts stealing blackened souls and claws of misery tearing throats out, he's a little freaked out, but secretly he also thinks it’s kind of cool. He just wishes he could pull that out of his head at will, instead of having to go through all this crap first. He can't write anything half decent lately unless it's after a dream. And that's driving him nuts, because his fingers are twitchy and his head feels like it's exploding, but he just can’t managed to turn it into words.

His straightener beeps. He runs a hand over his face again and picks it up, yawning.

He’s just so fucking tired.


	2. Party

She smokes. He watches. They wait out in the cold for the bus to pull up, sitting on the steps of their shitty house in the cold autumn of Illinois. It’s been nine months here, and Pete likes it, despite the horrible house. He has friends, he plays soccer. Sure, Clara can’t keep a job and they can’t even afford to have a shower at home but Pete likes it anyway. He’s not sure when they’ll leave, but Clara is twitchy lately, the way she gets before she skips a day at school and Pete will come home to his shit in boxes and her sitting in the crappy red pickup truck just fucking waiting for him in the driveway. 

Pete’s not actually sure how old Clara is. He’s ninety percent sure she’s at least ninety years old, because once they shared a bottle of vodka and she started talking about the twenties like she’d lived them. Everyone assumes they’re siblings, because he’s a junior and she’s a senior, but Clara has been seventeen since she moved into the empty bedroom in Pete’s grandmother’s house. She’d been living in the church shelter for runaway’s, and the pastor at their church had told Pete’s grandmother that Clara could help her with looking after Pete in exchange for a roof over her head. It was getting difficult for his grandmother to run around after him. She’d had trouble with her joints.

Clara used to fix them though. Magic, as far as Pete’s concerned. She used to put her hands on her knees and Pete’s Grandma would close her eyes and make this relieved sighing sound. She did it to Pete too sometimes, like when he’d fallen out of a tree and ripped half the skin off his leg. It was gone by the end of the day.

After Pete’s Grandma had died, they moved all the time. Clara was really restless at first. They stayed for only a month in the first place, but after that it got longer. Pete’s never questioned it, not once. He lets Clara pack up all their shit and take him somewhere new and he tries not to ask her too many questions about why she’s still seventeen after seven years. She’s been so many things to Pete. She’s gone from his weird teenage live in nanny to his makeshift mum to what feels like an older sister to his best friend. Pete knows it’ll be weird in two years when he turns eighteen and he’s older than her. Even when he’s thirty he thinks he’ll still let Clara tell him what to do.

“That’s bad for you,” he points to the cigarette, as if he hadn’t stolen packets of them from her when he was fourteen and used them to make friends in Seattle. She just snorts. He wonders if people that have magical non-ageing powers can get lung cancer. It’s a running joke with them, because even if they can, Pete is pretty sure Clara is invincible.

“Brendon is having a party tonight.” He says; inflicting that hopeful tone that means this doesn’t sound like a question, but it is, so please say yes.

She chucks the smoke on the ground, kicking leaves over it with her tattered boots, and lights another. Pete takes a sip of the coffee she’s put in a travel mug for him. “I shouldn’t be letting you drink all that coffee.” She says, pointing at the mug. He scoffs.

“Letting? You’re the one who made the damn thing.”

“I know.” She closes her eyes for a moment, exhaling puffs of smoke gently. “I don’t think I’m a very good mother.”

“It’s a good thing you aren’t my mother then.” He beams up at her around another yawn.

“Are you still having bad dreams?” She frowns, trying to blow a smoke ring and failing.

“Er, yeah.” He shrugs half-heartedly. He steers her back on track to the question at hand. “Party. At Brendon’s. Can I go?”

She leans against the porch railing and looks at him. “I don’t know, Pete. Do you have homework?"

He shakes his head exuberantly. “Nope.” He says, popping the P. “C’mon, Clara, the whole soccer team will be there.”

“I don’t like you going to Brendon’s. It’s too secluded out there in the woods.”

“Come with me then.” He taps his fingers on his jeans.

“Lindsey is coming over tonight.” She gives his fingers a dirty look. She hates it when he fidgets.

“Bring her.” He stills his fingers and smiles brightly, jumping up from the front step. “Pleaseeeee.” He does his thing; the thing Pete is famous for– his incessant badgering, prodding and general annoyance. He jumps all around her like a hyper puppy and tugs on her curled hair. She just shakes him off. Her hair’s pink now, and for the rainbow she’s modelled over the years, Pete’s never seen it pink before now. He likes it.

“Pete, no.” She runs a ragged hand over her face and through her hair. She looks tired. Pete’s not surprised. If he had to raise himself he’d be tired too.

He chews his bottom lip. “Wait… are you two dating? Cause that’s totally cool, y’know, I sometimes go the other way too, it’s-”

“Oh my god, Pete, no!” She throws her hands up in exasperation. “Definitely not. Not with Lindsey, anyway. Look, I just don’t feel like going out and I don’t want you going by yourself.”

“Andy and Joe are going.” He says. She raises an eyebrow as if this doesn’t change much. “Patrick as well.”

“As much as I love Patrick, you can’t just cart him around and pretend that because he keeps himself out of trouble he’ll do the same for you. You are a misbehaving little shit.” She gives him a disapproving once over and takes another drag. “You learnt that from me, I suppose. Sure as hell didn’t get it from Jennifer.” She mutters. “That woman was a saint.”

“Aww, Clara, c’mon. I won’t do anything bad, I promise.”

“Absolutely not. End of discussion. I’m sorry, Pete, I don’t like it out there. How would you even get home? No, do not say Patrick. I swear to god that poor boy gets talked into doing enough crap for you already.” She reprimands him sternly.

He pouts petulantly. “I thought you said you weren’t my mother.”

“You said that, kid, not me. I might look eternally youthful but I also have acquired eternal wisdom.” She taps her temple. “Trust me.” Which translates into I might not be your mother but I still am your legal guardian and I’m most likely one hundred years older than you, so don’t fuck with me, Pete, I swear to god I will ground you for eternity.

Pete grumbles, doesn’t say anything, just crosses his arms and gives her a sad face, which she diligently ignores. She drops her second smoke onto the ground next to the first and sets off towards the curb. He can see the bus turning the corner. Her voice filters back to him.

“Let’s go, sunshine.”

He jumps up and jogs after her, intent on trying again later.

***

Patrick can tell Pete's annoyed, but he's been extra tired for around two weeks now and Patrick has learnt to ignore Pete's crap long before this started happening. Pete's reached the stage of sleep deprivation where he's hyper, and he knows he's annoying the shit out of Patrick. But he can't stop. He's twisted around in his seat, clutching the travel mug in one hand and weaving the other around Patrick's middle, poking him a little in the small squashy bit of his tummy.

Patrick's making small grumbling noises, but they're barely there so Pete knows he's not too upset, which Pete is rather confused about. Patrick has two books spread out on his lap and iPod dangling from one ear and Pete's shifting things and making it even more difficult for him to write on the already bumpy bus trip.

Pete tries to get comfortable, nuzzling his head in the space in Patrick’s neck. Patrick wriggles a little.

"That tickles Pete, Jesus, calm the fuck down."

Pete sighs loudly and feels Patrick shiver under his breath. He makes an apologetic noise and shifts again. "Sing?"

"No." Patrick says, in that one voice that is to be taken seriously. He scribbles more messy music notes into one of the books. Pete can see a few lyric changes he'd make to whatever Patrick is doing, but his stupid brain is so blocked he can't work out what he'd change them too, so he doesn't say anything.

"Pleaseeee," Pete whines, tickling Patrick a little in the side. He gets an elbow in the gut for that.

Patrick sighs. He doesn't reply, but he doesn't sing either, just shoves the headphone he isn't using at Pete and steals some of his coffee. Pete makes a grumpy noise but presses his knee to Patrick's. Patrick presses back.

"Trick?"

Patrick makes a frustrated noise and tightens his fingers around his pen. "What?"

"Come with me to the party tonight."

"No."

"Whyyy?" He whines.

"Because you'll be drinking and probably get stoned and I don't wanna be your ride."

"We'll find someone else to be our ride."

"I don't want to, Pete, please." He's making that face, like Pete could convince him if he wanted to but he really wouldn't enjoy himself. Pete loves Patrick too much to push it. “I think you should just listen to Clara.”

Pete ignores him. Of course he knows Clara said no. They’ve probably been texting each other all morning. Fuck, he needs to find some friends that aren’t also friends with Clara. He puts in the headphone, pretends he likes this weird shit that Patrick's listening to and downs the rest of his coffee. He finally fell asleep at around two last night, and woke up again half an hour later, his back soaked with sweat. The second time he woke up, not even forty minutes later, he was just as shaky, but this time he was half hard in his boxers and Pete still can't get over that one. He's so fucked up on lack of sleep and stupid fucking nightmares that he's getting off on whatever is haunting him. Jesus Christ.

The bus stops and Lindsey gets on, tugging at her pigtails. She smiles at Pete before she sits down next to Clara, and he nods his head back. Patrick scribbles away furiously next to him, probably taking advantage of the non-moving bus. His phones buzzes and Lyn-Z flashes up on the screen.

Movie night tonight?

Pete looks up at Lindsey, six seats ahead of him, but all he can see is a black pigtail and the edge of her coat.

I wanna go to Brendon's, he replies.

Clara's already rang me this morning, you ain't going anywhere.

He pretends that isn’t true and lets out another loud sigh. He's sure he's done that like ten times this morning. The glare he receives from Patrick confirms his theory. The bus jerks forward, and Patrick must fuck up something because he makes an annoyed noise and takes back his earphone from Pete, cranking up the volume.

"Love you too, Trick." Pete mumbles crankily. He sends a text to Andy.

Give me a ride to Brendon's.

Andy doesn't reply right away. He closes his eyes and rests his head back on the seat, thinking he should've just skipped and stayed home and slept. He's already failing half his classes though. His phone buzzes.

Say please, Wentz

Please?

Are you allowed to go? Clara hates you going to Brendon's house.

For fucks sake, are all his friends in confidence with Clara now?

What Clara doesn't know won't hurt her. The whole team is going.

Whatever dude, you can come with me, but I'm not taking the rap for anything if you get caught.

Pete grins.

***

So he climbs out his bedroom window that night after Lindsey comes over and the stereo is turned up way too loud. The sun is setting as he jogs through the streets to Andy's, muted orange bleeding into the blue. He pulls his hood up and shoves his hands in his pockets. It's cold out. Pete ignores the look he gets from the old lady two doors down, probably because he’s wearing eyeliner and it’s easier to tell because he’s lost his and he’s had to use Clara’s. It’s all smudgy and way darker than he’s used to, but whatever, he looks good. He thinks about going back home to get a beanie, but he’s pretty sure they’d notice him walking in the front door and grabbing a hat off the hook in the front hall.

Andy’s waiting out the front of his house, leaning on the side of the car. Joe’s already in there, fiddling with the radio. “Hurry up, Wentz.” Joe calls. Andy just smiles and opens the door for him.

“Turn the heater on, Jesus.” Pete whines, shoving his hands up Joe’s hoodie and being a general nuisance.

Brendon's house, on the other hand, is not cold. He has a huge house, nestled into a large clearing in the woods. The source of heat is a towering bonfire that roars out the front, and there's people everywhere, kids that don’t even go to their school.Brendon’s one of those kids that skirt the line of seriously cool and seriously a loser and still end up with millions of friends. Pete’s not sure how he does it.

"Fuck," Joe whistles. "This kid is ridiculously loaded."

The music is so loud Pete can feel it vibrating in his bones. He drinks it in, letting his eyes flutter shut for a second, just feeling it. Never mind this is a shit song. It has some sick bass.

He can see some hot girls standing in group a little way over and Pete makes a mental note to head that way once he finds some beer and maybe a joint.

It doesn't take long. Joe's got some sort of sniffer dog nose for weed. He pulls Pete over to this really short kid, like Pete's height short, and suddenly the three of them have a circle going.

"I'm Frank." The kid grins, pulls out a joint and lights it. If Clara was here she’d call his smile a 'little shit' smile.

"This is Pete." Joe says, taking the joint off Frank.

Frank shakes Pete's hand like a weirdo, but Pete thinks he already looks kind of stoned and also, he's sharing that shit, so Pete isn't complaining.

"Thanks dude," Pete takes a hit and narrows his eyes. "Are you wearing eyeliner?"

Frank giggles, actually giggles, and he looks kind of adorable doing it. He's got some tattoos (Pete's guessing despite his thirteen year old appearance, he must be eighteen or something) and scruffy, long-ish hair. He somehow manages to pull off cute, short punk kid rather well. Pete gives him credit. That’s a difficult look.

"I might be. And so are you, dude, let’s not be assholes."

Pete coughs around a laugh. Fair enough. They pass the joint around a bit more and Joe disappears somewhere, clapping Pete on the back heavily. Stoned Joe gets all manly or some shit. Frank grins at him, smoking the last of it and squashing it on the ground.

"I'm going to get a refill." Frank says, bouncing on his toes. This guy has more energy than Pete on a good day. "Want one?"

"No thanks," Pete shakes his half full cup and points to the group of girls. He sees Brendon talking to them. He's already shirtless. Pete is pretty sure he saw him chuck it into the fire before. God, that kid is crazy. "I'm going over there."

Frank looks certifiably less excited, but he just smiles and walks away.

"Brendon, dude." Pete's not that stoned. He's just talking a little slow, that's all.

"Pete!" Brendon wraps a heavy arm around his neck. "This is Lauren and Cassie."

Cassie smiles at Pete. She's pretty. Black hair and dark eyes. Too much eyeliner and not enough clothing but he doesn’t mind. He grins back.

"Can I get you a drink?" He asks.

She plays with a strand of hair. "Sure." Pete knows those eyes. Those are sex eyes.

Pete is so good at picking that, because twenty minutes later they're out in woods, hidden amongst trees, and she's sucking him off. It's getting close to a full moon, and there’s just enough light that he can see her looking up at him through thick lashes. Pete's never gotten lucky this fast with a girl before, but he's kind of thinking it's not too lucky because she really sucks at giving head. She's not really stimulating much, and she's not using tongue at all, and Pete's never had a blowjob this bad before, and he's fucking stoned. He should be feeling this everywhere.

Fuck, he’s never really had a bad blowjob at all. He didn’t know you could get a bad blowjob without there being, like, biting or something, and she hasn’t gone that far yet. She hums a little around his dick and, oh, finally, there's something. He can feel her getting frustrated though, and he pulls out, and helps her stand up. He kisses her, grabbing her hand and wrapping it around his dick. He's not really sure if this is subtle or not, but he's so horny and drunk enough he doesn't really give a fuck.

"Jerk me off," he whines against her lips, thrusting into her hand and moaning against her neck. She's not much better at this, but at least Pete can get some hip action in without being scared of choking her.

It takes a while, but he finally, finally, comes all over her hand, resting his head on her shoulder and groaning into her collarbone. Cassie makes a disgusted noise. "Gross, Pete."

He feels a blush creep up his neck. "Sorry, I didn't me-"

"It's fine." She says shortly, pushing him away. She stumbles off, stopping to wipe her hand on a bush. He winces.

Well then.

He doesn't follow her. He would've offered to return the favour, but she left before he could even get the words out. He tucks his dick back into his ridiculously tight pants. Every limb in his body is buzzing like crazy. A smell, sweet and a little musky all at once, fills his nose. Vanilla? He rubs at his arms. His head screams. Pete whips his head around, clenching his fists tight. Twigs snap underfoot. He trips on roots, but he keeps walking. Which way was the house? Why is he even out here?  

He wants to rip off his skin. He wants to tear out his throat. His vision goes blurry around the edges. His lungs scream. He falls to his knees and then everything is silent, still. Black. 

***

Mikey stares at Pete stumbling through the trees, his pulse speeding up. "Frank.” He tugs on the sleeve of Frank’s jacket frantically. “Frank, what is he doing?"

Pete suddenly falls into a crouch, putting his head between his hands. He moans; one long, loud moan that resonates in Mikey’s chest and makes it ache.

"I don't know." Frank walks out towards him. Mikey follows. "Pete? Are you okay?"

Pete looks up, his eyes wild, and watches Frank walking towards him for a second until he spots Mikey behind Frank and launches himself at him, snarling.

Mikey hits the ground so hard his neck jerks back and he hits his head. Mikey feels him, a heavy weight on his thin legs, and Pete claws at him, a grating snarl ripping out of him. Mikey tries to shove him away, but Pete just dips down, breathing hot air onto Mikey's neck before he feels the ghost of teeth there and then Frank rips Pete off Mikey and has him pinned down in seconds. Mikey feels the loss of him as soon as he's gone, cold air whooshing over him.

Pete struggles, and Mikey notices the wetness on his chin and the way his teeth are bared at Frank. Frank opens his mouth and Mikey spots the fangs for a second as he hisses at Pete. Pete stills underneath him.

"He's shaking." Frank says. Pete locks eyes with Mikey and his defensive face falls. He lets out a low whine.

Mikey crouches down and touches Pete's cheek. Pete whines again, louder, but he pushes his cheek into Mikey's hand and his eyes flutter shut. Mikey makes a shushing sound and uses his sleeve to wipe away the drool on Pete's chin.

“Should I call Clara?” Frank murmurs.

“No.” Mikey takes a shaky breath. His head aches where he hit it on the ground, but other than that, he feels okay. Just a little shook up. “He’s calming down.” He moves closer to Pete and presses his fingers to each temple. Pete’s breathing evens out and his lids soften. “He’ll wake up in a moment.”

“Who called you before?” Frank shifts on top of Pete, but he doesn’t get up.

“Lindsey. She wanted me to go home. I should’ve listened to her. I just… I haven’t seen him in ages, Frank. Not properly.”

“I know, Mikes.” Frank touches Mikey’s arm. Pete moves a little underneath Frank. Mikey knows he’s going to wake up, any second now. He didn’t do it very strongly. Frank gets up.

"I don't want him to remember this." Mikey says, not looking at Frank. Pete's eyes are still closed. His hair sticks up wildly. Mikey pushes it down a little, gently.

“He’ll probably just think it was a dream, Mikey, I don’t thin-”

“Please, Frankie.” Mikey whispers. His voice is husky. “Please.”

Frank stares at him, eyebrows creased. He breathes the word out, so soft Mikey can barely hear him. "Okay."

Frank drops to the ground and puts a hand on either side of Pete’s face. He presses his lips to his forehead, ever so slightly, murmurs something. Mikey looks away.

“It’ll just be really foggy. Works better after feeding and they are all weak but… should be okay.” He puts one arm across his stomach to hold onto the other, toeing at the leaves.

“Thank you.” Mikey hugs him before they leave. “Thank you.”


	3. Freakout

Pete runs faster than he ever has. He’s never been slow, especially not for the laughable length of his legs, but now he races down the empty road that leads up to Brendon’s, feet flying underneath him at an impressive speed. He feels like he could fall at any second, but he pushes faster, gulping in cool air. His feet hit the ground hard and his thighs burn, but still he pushes faster. He doesn’t know what he’s running from. He doesn’t even remember beginning to run, he doesn’t remember shit. He can just feel his heart pounding and his throat tightening and sweat covering every inch of his body. All he knows is right now.

It feels like his dreams. He can feel fear creeping up his throat and making his spine tingle and Pete can’t decide if he wants to stop and heave all over the road or keep running. He can remember hands; milky white hands with thin, pretty fingers and he’s not sure if he should be scared of them or not. They make his stomach go warm but now he’s thinking about all this, foggy memories of something, he’s not sure what, just _something_ , and suddenly Pete’s crying, sobbing, while he runs. He sucks in big, broken gulps of air and chokes it back out along with tears.

His entire body is buzzing. And he feels so cold, but on the inside, like the blood in his veins is freezing over. Pete runs faster. The moon lights the road and Pete feels it bearing down on him. He drinks it up, trying to let it balance the stupid fucking buzzing. He still drips sweat despite how cold he is.

He runs all the way home. It must take him at least an hour, maybe two, but suddenly Pete’s collapsed on his front lawn and he’s sprinted all the way back from Brendon’s house in the motherfucking woods, for Christ’s sake. He heaves in like three breathes and lies still for a minute, and then his breathing is even and he’s okay. He’s okay. After sprinting back from Brendon’s house. That is in the woods, forty minutes away from Pete’s house – in a car.

What. The. Fuck.

He stumbles up his front porch and stares at the piece of paper on the door, written in Clara’s usual style (aversion to capital letters, of which annoys the shit out of him).

_pete: if you get home before i get back from driving lindsey home, and you are not dead, i love you, and you are grounded. even if i am home, you’re grounded. absolutely, most definitely, infinitely grounded. you are a little shit. actually, you are a big shit. a giant shit._

Pete groans, rips the note off the door – which is signed with a little heart and then a ‘fuck you’ - and runs upstairs. He barely gets to the bathroom before he’s got a hand down his pants, curled around his dick and he’s coming after six quick strokes and a muffled moan into his arm. Then he doubles over the toilet and vomits, heaving.

He thinks of those hands again, as he crawls back into bed, and he wraps himself up in his sheet despite the heavy heat of the room, hoping to warm his frozen blood. He has some sort of cross between a hallucination and blurry image of himself as a cold blooded snake, and yearns to lie out in the sun. Instead he shivers, freezing but sweaty, and he doesn’t even get close to sleep until he hears the truck pull up in the driveway and his eyes fly open again.

It’s a blur. Clara yells. She yells a lot. She always yells at him. Usually he yells back, but tonight he stares at her from his bed, watching as she carries his television away with a sudden burst of surprising strength. She cries the whole time.

She leaves a glass of water and painkillers on his bedside table. He gets a kiss on the forehead and then a slap on the cheek that could’ve been gentler, but he can’t move. The buzzing is almost gone now. He feels like he’s melting into the mattress below him. He’s exhausted.

She even sinks down next to his bed and puts her hand over the dried blood on his shin. He must’ve scraped it when he fell onto the lawn in the front yard.

“How do you feel?” She asks, concern dripping from the words.

“Cold. Tired. Hot.” He answers honestly. Her brow doesn’t unknit, but she stays quiet.

The skin under her hands blooms with soft warmth, only for a second, and when she takes her hands away the angry red lines are gone.

She cleans away the left over blood with a washer. “You haven’t done that in ages.” He murmurs, watching her through heavy eyelids. His sheets stay dotted with patches of blood.

“I haven’t. You haven’t given me reason too.” She’s taking away his pants now, and Pete can barely muster the energy to blush at the thought of the dried come inside them.

She crawls in next to him, and she smells like salty tears and caramel. He buries into her chest.

“You’re grounded. Indefinitely.”

He groans so quietly it’s more of a squeak.

*** 

Pete sleeps away most of Saturday. It’s filled with more dreams he can’t remember, and this image of Clara standing in his doorway with another person. A boy with fire engine red hair. He can’t be sure if it’s real. He wakes up panting and clutching a pillow to his chest so hard his fingers are aching.

He doesn’t remember getting up, but when he wakes up the next time he’s in the garage, and it’s the middle of the night. He doesn’t think he’s sleep-walked, because he’s curled in the corner next to some old tins of paints and there’s an impressive nest of blankets and pillows with a Pete shaped indent. He smashes the old windows in the corner of the room and then sits down in the glass, mesmerised by the way the blood runs down his fists like liquid ribbons He lets it drip onto the shards of glass and swirls it around like it’s paint. Maybe he can make a stained glass window for Clara with the blood. She likes red.

He doesn’t realise it’s cutting him until Clara’s wrapping long fingers around his shoulders and pulling him away from it. He realises that the blood is dripping from his fingertips too now.

“No,” he protests lightly. “I can make dot patterns now. I’m making it for you, Clary. It’ll match the lipstick you like to wear.”

She ignores him, and she’s wiping at his face with one of the blankets and Pete can’t work out why it’s coming away all wet and he can’t see her clearly. Why are his eyes blurry? He asks her this and she’s crying, choking on it, and Pete doesn’t know why. She wraps his dripping hands up in the blanket and there’s black and warmth and Pete is content, and everything stops there.

When Pete wakes up on Sunday afternoon his hands are fine. Clara doesn’t say anything, and Pete is sure it was just a vague dream and he’s finally remembering them, but then he peeks into the garage and the window is gone, and he can see faint dotting’s of red, scrubbed away on the concrete until they’re barely there. The garage smells like bleach and he’s sure he’s smelling blood too.

Clara doesn’t take his phone, so he thinks she can’t be that mad. After whatever happened to him all weekend, the buzzing has dissolved mostly. He can still feel it in his fingers though, and by Monday morning he’s tapping them everywhere he possibly can, as if he moves them enough whatever the fuck this is will just leak out the ends of his fingers and fuck off. He vomits before school and pretends not to see the blood in the bowl before he flushes the toilet.

Pete's sure he's going fucking crazy. Apparently in the process he's driving everyone else insane too, but fuck, cut him some slack. Clara keeps fucking hovering around him and cleaning everything, and that’s enough to make him feel even more fucked, because Clara is certifiably allergic to housework.

At lunch he’s in full force. His forearms are itchy now, not just his fingers, and it's like his head is ready to explode his brain into a million pieces and paste it all over the cafeteria walls. It’s coming back. Even though Pete’s been sleeping all weekend and he thinks he could run up the walls of the cafeteria, and then maybe all the way around the earth and still not be winded, he’s too _mentally_ exhausted to fight it off. He wants to vomit. He’s taken six pills this morning of various uses, and none of them are fucking working.

"Pete, man. Shut the fuck up." Joe says, glaring at Pete’s fingers, which are tapping away at the lunch table loudly, without any real beat.

Pete moves his hands to his pant legs and continues his god awful drum beats silently, way out of tune of anything. Andy gives him one of his wise monk looks, like he knows Pete should be taking better care of himself. But none of this is Pete’s fault, c’mon. He doesn’t remember signing up for this. He tries not to think about all the pills he shouldn’t have taken and his fucked up window painting escapade, because he’s ninety nine percent sure that Andy is a mind reader and he doesn’t want him knowing about this.

"What?" Pete shoots at him, daring him to speak. Maybe if he could just remember what happened between the shit blowjob and the weird ass fucking running, he would feel a little better. He has a giant fucking black hole in his memory. It's enough to freak anyone out. Not mentioning randomly waking up in the garage and then trying to fucking make blood covered church art or some shit.

"Nothing." Andy says, his lips twitching. Pete's temper flares a little. This isn't funny, at least not to him. If he could just stop _fidgeting_.

“It’s not nothing,” Joe says, dropping one of his hands from under his chin and banging it dully on the table, looking up from his textbook. “What the fuck is with you, dude?”

"How the fuck are you studying in the cafeteria?" Pete fires back, gesturing to the book wildly.

Joe almost growls. "Answer the question, motherfucker, I’m not the one annoying the shit out of everyone."

“I’ve been feeling weird lately, leave it, okay?”

“Why?” Patrick asks, sliding in next to Pete, putting his tray down gently.

“I don’t know.” Pete grumbles, shovelling his food down. He’s starving. Patrick leans over and rubs Pete's back gently in circles.

“Look,” says Pete. “Patrick is supportive.”

“Patrick is too nice to you.” Joe grumbles. Patrick gives him the finger.

“You can talk to us.” Patrick says, shooting Joe another glare.

“What the fuck is this, Barney and Friends? Are we women now?” Pete huffs. “I’m fine.”

Patrick gives him a dirty look. “Don’t take this out on me.”

Pete sighs and mumbles sorry. He actually would love to talk. But he has no clue what the fuck about since he has a _giant fucking hole in his memory._

Pete glares over at Clara. He’s absolutely certain this is her fault. Or he’s going to pretend that’s the case. He shouldn’t have gone to that stupid party, he knows that. But she hasn’t spoken to him in like three days, since Friday night, even in the garage, and it’s adding to whatever is fucking him up right now. She’s like his anchor, and she’s not holding him down right now. She’s fucking cleaning like a madwoman and ignoring him for Ray and Lindsey.

 _Fuck, just come back_. He texts her, trying to hide the screen from Andy and failing.

“Maybe you could try saying sorry.” He mumbles, in his soft little Andy voice.

Pete huffs, but he knows Andy is right. _I’m sorry,_ he adds. He watches her look at her phone, but she just ignores it. He sends her a bunch of crying emojis and a plssss and watches her shake her head. He hopes he’s not imagining the fond nature of it. She taps at her phone wildly and his phone buzzes a second later.

_omg i’ll walk you to history, ffs chill out_

He sighs, relieved. He knows he’s at least half forgiven. He’s got a suspicion she wasn’t that mad in the first place. Pete loops an arm around Patrick’s lower back and rests his chin in his shoulder dip, using the familiar way he smells and how his body concaves and protrudes under his own to calm him. He forces himself to sit still and stays like that for the rest of the lunch. Patrick resolutely ignores him, but his hand is on Pete’s knee and he isn’t pushing him away, so Pete is taking what he can get. He doesn’t even punch the guy that coughs “fags” at them, mainly because Patrick’s hand tightens to a death grip.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m ignoring it,” Pete responds to the silent warning and shuts his eyes. “Love you.”

***

The buzzing is in his dick now. He’s hard in his pants the whole way through History and the walk to Biology. He’s just glad he sits in the back of this class, and the lights are off today because they’re watching a movie. It’s his last lesson of the day, and he can feel Patrick’s irritation with him, coming off his body in waves. He just can’t stop fidgeting. White noise fills his ears, the buzzing coursing through his body like he’s on fire. He drums on the desk, taps his foot, tugs on the pieces of hair that make up his fringe, bounces on his seat and runs his hands up and down his jeans so fast they heat up and he pulls away, hissing. They’re about a quarter of the way through the movie before Patrick wraps one hand around his wrist and holds his hand down.

“Pete,” he hisses. They won’t be heard. The movie is pretty loud. Still, Pete can’t hear it over the roaring over in ears. “Do you wanna sit the fuck still?”

Pete almost fucking whimpers; that’s how frustrated he is. Patrick is his best mate, but if Pete’s honest he’s pretty attractive and Pete’s got this little thing about being held down. Patrick’s hand wrapped tightly around Pete’s wrist is sending little shots of need to his dick.

“I can’t.” He whines back.

“Why the fuck not?” Patrick isn’t as pissed as his words make him sound; he’s loosened his grip on Pete’s wrist and he’s looking at him concernedly. Pete gives him major points for not snapping before now. _He_ wants to slap _him_ self in the face right now.

“I’ve felt weird since that party, Trick.” He admits. That’s when the buzzing started. Now his whole skin itches so bad he wants to rip it off.

“Did you take something?” Patrick narrows his eyes and Pete can feel his judgement.

“No! I smoked some weed. That’s it, I swear. I only had three beers too, fuck; it wasn’t even a good party.”

“Maybe you should’ve listened to your sister then.” Patrick says bitterly. Pete can’t blame him. He had warned him to listen to her. He bites back the automatic ‘she’s not my sister’ and just shakes his head.

“You sound like her, dude. I told her I’m sorry.” Patrick just gives him a look and turns back to the screen. It’s barely been ten seconds before Pete shoots his hand up and asks for the bathroom pass.

***

Pete’s never jerked off in the school bathroom before cause, shit, he’s not _that_ kid. But he’s got his pants down and his hand on his dick in all of five seconds after he gets in the stall and fuck, now he’s that kid that jerks off at school. He swipes his hand over his dick fast, leaning his head on the wall and panting, desperate. Pete’s a moaner too, oh god, he’s so fucking loud it’s ridiculous; he owes Clara like ten packs of smokes for listening to this most nights and not killing him in his sleep and– _motherfucker_. The sheer relief of touching himself is so good Pete lets another loud moan fly, rolling his head back. He shoves his free hand in his mouth, bites down hard and quickens his strokes, groaning as softly as possible and trying not to think about Patrick and the hard grip he had on his wrist cause, fuck, that’s just too weird.

He pushes his best friend out of his mind, searching for something else to think about. Suddenly there are these images there instead, all soft around the edges and shrouded in black. It’s those thin hands again, and Pete’s not sure if he’s making it up or it’s a memory, but the hands are pinning his wrists down beside his head and Pete’s sure he can almost feel the ghost of something in the dip of his neck. Oh god, oh god, _oh god_. He feels his stomach warm and his dick jerk in his hand and then he comes all over his hand with an embarrassing high whine and huffs out a warm gasp over his arm. He has to take a moment to breathe, because wow.

And yet, he’s still buzzing. But it’s dulled it back to just his hands, and Pete could cry with relief. He slowly tucks his dick back in his ridiculously tight jeans and melts down onto the closed toilet lid. He rests his head in his hands.

 _I’m dying._ He thinks, oddly calm. _I’m going to fill with like, fizz, or whatever the fuck this is, and I’m going to explode everywhere and die._

 _Oh my god. No you are not; you’re such a drama queen._ Another voice in his head answers, scoffing. It sounds a lot like Clara.

“I am.” He moans out loud. “I fucking am.”


	4. Mikey

That afternoon, Pete skips soccer practice. He doesn't take the bus. He runs. He runs even faster than he usually does, not faster than last Friday night, but fast. It feels great; feet slapping down on the pavement and wind rushing against his face. It's the first time all day he hasn't felt like he's bursting. He flops down on his front steps and heaves a few breaths. Maybe he's sweat it out? Maybe it’s finally over? Maybe he’s turned into whatever Clara is. He’ll have magical healing powers or something. He doesn’t feel like he’s a magical doctor or anything. Pete’s not sure what that would feel like, but he doesn’t feel any different.

He's not even sure what Clara is. He doesn't ask. He learnt long ago that she always just answers "Later, Pete, I’ll tell you one day." He kind of just figures he'll never know. But now he feels eyes on him and he twists around to see her come out the front door and lock it behind her. The look on her face makes him think maybe now is later, maybe this is that day. Then she sticks her tongue out and grins at him. He shoves the thought out of his head.

"Can you stop running places like a crazy person, please?" She says to him, stepping across the porch and wrapping a scarf around her neck. She throws one at him.

"I'm not cold, I just fucking, like, ran home, idiot." He gets up and follows her, clutching the scarf.

"I know; you're freaking me out. I know you're all sporty and shit but are you insane too?" Clara walks around to the driver’s side of the pickup truck.

"It's not that far.” The look Pete gets in return tells him he couldn't pay Clara enough to run anywhere, let alone all the way home. “Where are we going?"

“Lindsey is making us dinner.” She answers absently, still looking at him strangely.

He slides into the passenger seat. "I just had a lot of energy, okay, stop looking at me like that.” Pete wraps the scarf around his wrist. “And you know, you’ve been looking after me officially for five years now, longer unofficially. How am I still alive when the only meals I currently get are from Lindsey’s kitchen?"

Clara laughs; a nice, loud laugh that makes Pete’s chest swell. “Lindsey used to feed me before you too, that girl is gold.”

So Lindsey is some magical non aging seventeen year old too. Pete had suspicions. Clara used to call Lindsey once a week at least, before they moved here. He figures she wasn’t talking to a twelve year old.

"This car fucking drinks the petrol man, we need a new one." She complains, her voice barely audible over the loud engine.

"Yeah, well, we've only had it for seven years. It was a piece of shit then too."

Clara does that loud laugh again. He loves it so much. "I've somewhat had you for seven years too; I'm not calling you names."

"Come on, Clara, the damn thing is barely breathing, I can hear it spluttering."

"Hey, hey, this car has been good to me, okay? I love it. Anyway, I've had it since the seventies; it was just living in a junkyard before. "

Pete turns to stare at Clara with wide eyes. She freezes a little, her back stiffening.

"Oops." She huffs out a laugh nervously. She's done that a few times before; accidentally mention a time in which she lived. The only time further back was that time with the vodka when she was being all starry-eyed about the twenties, but Pete has never been sure if she was serious.

"The seventies?" Pete whispers, looking at her incredulously. "Fuck, Clara. How much older are you than your relationship with the car?"

She sighs. She stays quiet for a very long time.

"Don't say 'another time', please." He begs.

"I'm not, I'm trying to think. You know I suck at math.” She says, trying for levity and failing.

"What, you've forgotten?" He asks incredulously.

"It starts to blur together." She answers offhandedly, still chewing at her lip.

Pete waits. He tries not to think about how long it takes for it to blur together.

"I’m kind of really old, Pete.” She warns.

He shrugs. “Okay.”

“Like, don’t have a freak out.”

“Jesus, Clara, you haven’t aged for seven years, clearly you’re a lot older than you look. Just tell me!”

She looks over at him. He looks back at her expectantly. She frowns and looks away.

“Two hundred and twenty three.”

Pete stares at her. He watches her throat move as she swallows and her nose wrinkles for a second as she screws it up; something he’s long since identified as a one of her nervous tic's. The silence drags on for what seems like too long, and it’s heavy, like someone’s arm on your chest after they’ve fallen asleep and left it draped over your chest too long. Clara sneaks a worried glance at him. He whistles and thinks about how he was right about today being that day. "Well, fuck." He’s so fucking psychic, fuck yeah.

She gives him a nervous smile. Pete’s got hundreds of questions, but then Clara says “You’re not freaking out,” and of course he isn’t, but he’s kind of sure she is, so he grins his happy grin and shakes his head. Clara gives him a wistful, blurry look and time seems to slow. Pete feels nine years old again, on a Thursday afternoon. He was a conglomeration of muddy shoes, messy hair and flushed pink cheeks. His happiness was a bubbling effervescence of too many words and not enough intake of breath, ending in a messy rush of words that didn’t quite fit and an embarrassed face, directed at the a strange girl he’d never met before in his dining room, giving him the same look she’s giving him right now. He’d knocked a vase over and as he’s remembering his grandmother’s exasperated sigh of _Pete_ he feels a familiar tug in his gut and a tightening in his chest, a mix of _I miss you_ and the way he hates himself and his stupid behavioural tendencies for making people say his name in that tone so often. He hates being a constant disappointment.  
Clara clears her throat, looking away, and the memory is lost, but he thinks her hair was blonde then and he runs a hand through his own and thinks about turning it a similar colour.

"Well, you look great for your age." He says, ignoring the self-doubt that is creeping in, disappointment and _Pete_ ringing in his ears, achieving flippancy with ease, because that’s what Pete is good at. Flippancy.

Clara snorts.

***

Lindsey lives in a little house that backs onto a forest, out where it’s less trees-to-fit-the-houses and more houses-to-fit-between-the-trees.  
Clara parks the truck on the side of the road because the driveway is taken up by a car Pete has never seen before; a small, curvy little thing that looks pretty cheap but still better than theirs. He frowns. Lindsey doesn't have a car. He tugs a few leaves off the tree as they walk past and throws them on the bonnet. Clara makes a disapproving noise but doesn’t speak.

Clara knocks, which he finds odd, but she takes off her shoes and walks in as normal: without a reply. He just follows her. He feels off. Pete’s been to Lindsey's hundreds of times, but suddenly he feels awkward and out of place. Pete gets lost staring at the weird art hanging on the walls, even though he's seen it before and he doesn't think it's anything special. He just thinks it’s fucking weird and actually kind of ugly.

"He’s being odd again, Lindsey." Clara calls into the kitchen. He flips her off.

“When is he not?” Lindsey calls back, and Pete always feels a little left of center with the two of them. He always thinks of Clara as his. He never thought about the fact that there were people that knew Clara inside out like he does, but Lindsey does. And she knows Pete inside out too; hands him the cookies before he asks and they’re the kind he wants, answers his unsaid questions, or that first day when she told him he could borrow any of her books without him even asking her first. He sometimes feels like he’s lost his footing with Lindsey, because he’s still learning her.

It’s early, but Lindsey has a pot in the oven already. She sits at the counter on her phone, twirling slowly on a bar stool. She’s shoving chips in her mouth like dinner isn’t in fifteen minutes. Pete tugs one of her pigtails as Clara plops down next to her, stealing a chip out of her fingers and sniggering when Lindsey protests. Pete moves to sit on the couch and pulls out his phone, opening a message from Patrick.  
He wants to say something to him, but he’s pretty sure he can’t just send “hey dude, my sister is actually not my sister, she’s just some random chick who just looks after me, oh and btw, just found out she’s 223 years old.” So he just sends him a song he wants him to check out and pretends nothing has changed. The buzzing in his hands stays put, for now.

They eat with a soundtrack of Nirvana, because it’s Clara’s choice tonight. Pete eats it all in three minutes; basically inhales it, because, fuck he’s starving. He gets up to begin packing the dishwasher. Really, he should be given a medal for how well he’s been handling this age thing. Truthfully, he already knew somewhat. She’s only been healing his scrapes for seven years. He knew she was something different. Pete’s formulating a polite way to ask Lindsey how old she really is and if she can do any cool things too when someone speaks behind him.

"Hello. I'm Mikey,"

Pete whirls around. 'Mikey' appears from the door to the basement. He's tall and thin, and he has the sort of flicky brown hair that Pete wishes he had. Pete releases a breath he didn't realise he was holding as Clara sighs heavily behind him.

"Mikey, go back downstairs." Lindsey commands, sitting up straighter. They both put their forks down, ceasing the conversation that was running softly in the background. Mikey doesn’t move, just stares at Pete like he can’t look away.

Everyone is silent, unmoving, but Pete still feels the same, calm and light, except for the tiny bit of heat pooling in the base of his gut. “Hi,” Pete answers, flicking his eyes quickly to Lindsey, feeling a little like he’s betrayed her. “Pete.”

"You look different," Mikey mutters. He raises his hand a little, his fingers twitching, and Pete thinks giddily he's going to step forward and touch his cheek, but then he shoves his hands in his pockets and his gaze drops to the floor.

"Um, what?" Pete manages to reply.

"Oh my god. Mikey, please," Clara says. Mikey's brow furrows ever so slightly, so small Pete has really look for it.

"You've had him for seven years, Clara.” He lowers his voice. “I just wanted to see him for a second." He murmurs softly. Pete knows two days ago he wouldn't have heard those words, not at the volume level they are spoken. Not from how far away he is. But he does now. He hears it plain as day.

And then Mikey is gone, his thin fingers brushing Pete's shoulder for a second before he opens the door to the basement stairs and steps out of view. Pete feels him leave; the way the room gets colder, emptier, as if it were once a full water bottle and suddenly someone just tipped half out.

He turns around slowly, wishing a little that Mikey would come back and fill the room up again to the right level. Two pairs of eyes meet him.

“Have I met him before?” Pete asks them, feeling his brow knit together.

Clara sighs, a long, drawn out, heavy sigh. That’s a family trait, Pete thinks, even if Clara isn’t actually related to him. He gets it from her. "No. Thank you for dinner, Lindsey. Let’s go home, kid."

Clara just leaves a half full bowl of food at the table and walks out.

***

Mikey gets on the bus with Lindsey in the morning. He’s all long lines and pointy joints, his shirt riding up over hipbones that protrude outwards. He's wearing jeans so tight he must’ve sewed himself into them. Pete watches him walk down the aisle. Mikey's lips quirk up into a tiny smile at Pete as he walks past.

Patrick snorts a little.

Pete doesn't reply to that because he has dignity. "The new kid looks okay." Shut up, he does.

"You think he's hot."

Pete rolls his eyes. "That changes things how?"

Patrick smirks, adjusting his hat and pulling his sleeves down over his knuckles. "It doesn't. Just wanted to point that out.” He leans his head on Pete’s shoulder.

“Ask him to sit with us, Trick,”

“And why can’t you?”

“It’s my well practiced trick,” Pete says dramatically. “I lure them in with the cute, fluffy one and then me, the hot asshole, eats them alive.”

Patrick rolls his eyes; Pete can feel it. “Did you just call me fluffy?”

“Dude,” Pete continues, ignoring him. “I’m joking. I just mean if he’s not in my classes I won’t get the chance. I’m coming at the problem from all angles, making sure the plan is foolproof.” Pete is glad Patrick is ignoring how much he sounds like a tool.

“What if I don’t want to help you bone the new kid?” Patrick huffs. Pete mentally notes to set him up with someone since Patrick is most definitely sick of performing the one-sided job of helping Pete get laid.

“You didn’t come with me to the party. You owe me one.”

Patrick acts like this isn’t true but mutters sure, and Pete grins and kisses him sloppily on the cheek.  
***  
Pete's gut swirls. The buzzing is back in full force, up his arms, spreading through his chest and down his legs, slowly, teasing. He plops down in the empty seat next to Mikey in History, whose scribbling what looks like drawings and definitely not History work into his book. Mikey raises an eyebrow at his weak smile and Pete feels triumphant in breaking his resting bitch face with minimal effort. He tries to concentrate on his work, but he can smell Mikey ridiculously strongly. He smells like pine, unwashed sheets and a little of sweat, and there’s the faintest hint of vanilla there that Pete decides is most likely his shampoo. He runs his fingers all over his open book, breathing slowly, and tries not to think about how he’s cataloguing – let alone able to smell - all the different smells of the pretty new kid sitting at least a foot away from him. He closes his eyes for a second, but that makes it worse. He can pinpoint every little thing in the room; the sound of Brendon chewing gum in the back, someone tapping a pencil softly. He can smell some awful, cheap perfume right up the back and he can tell someone is rubbing something out because he can smell the paper heating up under the friction. All of it makes his head hurt and his mouth feel like sandpaper. His senses are on overdrive. If he tries hard enough he can smell the wet leaves outside, even though all the windows are closed to keep the heating in. He focuses back on Mikey without looking at him. Pete’s becoming all too reliant on others lately, but he’s never really liked just the company of himself. He tries to envelop the smell of him because suddenly it’s as good as Clara standing next to him; another calming anchor, holding him in place. Keeping the bile in the back of his throat down.

He spends his first lesson tapping out the beats to entire songs on the floor. By the time English rolls around he's ready to skip class and just run somewhere again. It got it out last time. But he doesn't. He doesn’t want to push it with Clara. She hasn't lifted his grounding. Besides, he can do English. It's his best class at the moment.

When the bell rings for the end of English Pete almost leaps out of his seat. He’s managed to do nothing this lesson and still feels exhausted and full of energy all at once. Pete could slam someone into a wall and bash their face into a pulp and come out feeling fine; he knows it.

Mikey is sitting in his seat at the table they usually sit at, deep in conversation with Joe. Patrick is nowhere to be seen. Pete hates this. Patrick is another anchor. He feels familiar. He’s considering turning around to look for him, but he figures he’s done what Pete has asked, so Pete takes advantage of it.

“Hey,” He says, putting his tray down gently. He can smell Mikey again. He smells like the sprawling freedom of the forest; Pete wants. Badly. School feels like a trap of white walls.

“This is Mikey,” Joe says, gesturing towards Mikey. “Pete, this kid has great taste in music.”

Pete raises an eyebrow at Mikey. “Does he now?”

Joe gives him a weird look, but Mikey mirrors his raised eyebrow like it’s an answer and Pete knows exactly what he’s saying before he says it.

“I’m just broad. I generally match up with one of your tastes cause I like a lot.”

“Yeah, Wentz is like that,” Andy says, “But he listens to a lot of weird shit too.”

Pete scowls. “Yeah, thanks dude.”

Joe shrugs and launches back into whatever band they are talking about. Pete’s never been that clued in with music; his tastes are expansive and he knows some of the stuff he likes is pure trash, but he can’t help that.

Pete barrels over what Joe is saying and interrupts. “I’m going to the lake. Who’s coming?”

“Now?” Joe frowns. “I have a Psych exam.”

“Dude, you’re grounded.” Andy points out.

Pete makes a face. He’s over that. “I’m over that.” He says.

“Where’s the lake?” Mikey asks, and this seems to remind Joe and Andy he’s there.

“It’s just out of town. There’s a shortcut behind the school.” Andy supplies, taking a bite of his sandwich.

“Come with me.” Pete says, and he hasn’t planned this, he swears. He shoves his chair back, almost leaping out of it with the way he’s on fire.

Mikey does come, with a silent shrug. He’s a lot taller than Pete, so he keeps up with him even though Pete’s half jogging.

“What’s your last name, Mikey?”

“Way.”

“Mikeyway.” Pete rolls it around in his mouth, feeling for the flavour. “Mikeyway. That just fits together, like one word, huh?” Pete decides to run backwards so he can look at Mikey. Mikey just raises his eyebrow again. Pete can hear his heart beat, and its fast, almost faster than Pete’s.

“You’re like, really pretty.” Pete says, studying Mikey intently. He is, like, totally the hottest guy Pete’s ever going to make out with. He has to make this happen. Mikey blushes.

“Are you Regina George and I’m the new girl or something?” Mikey says. “Am I supposed to say ‘thank you,’ and then you set me up?”

“Pretty sure Regina didn’t have a boner for Cady, but hey, you never know. Maybe that’s why she hated the idea of Janis, she was actually was a lesbian. Wow, we are geniuses. Good job, Mikeyway.” Pete jumps over the fence and holds out a hand to help Mikey. The side he’s now on is sloping downhill. Mikey stumbles a little as he follows him down.

“Okay, forget Mean Girls; is this like one of those movies where you take me to this really secluded area and murder me?”

“Exactly.” Pete says, trying for creepy and ruining it with a giggle. “I’m going to sacrifice you to the gods or something in exchange for eternal youth.”

Mikey trips on a branch and almost falls, but Pete steadies him. “I’m pretty sure that being eternally youthful would be awful.”

Pete scoffs. “No way. You’d be hot forever.”

“You’d get so bored,” Mikey says. “What about when all the people you love grow old and die and you’re still alive?”  
Pete tugs on Mikey’s sweater to guide him down a path that’s not really a path and more of a section Pete has stomped through enough times to clear a little. “Okay, you win with that. But what if the people you love are immortal as well? Oh, be careful, it gets kind of muddy around here.”

“I still think you’d get bored.”

Pete grins and turns around so quickly that Mikey runs into him. “Not with me around.” He pulls up a tree branch that is hanging low and gestures that Mikey go under it. He can hear everything out here. Lizards in the underbrush, bird wings cutting through the air above, every individual leaf rustling. It’s like a delicious headache.

“You seem to have a lot of faith in your ability to eternally entertain, Pete.”

“I’ll prove it later,” Pete promises sincerely, then abruptly changes the subject. “I have a game this afternoon. Soccer. After we always go to this diner in town. Wanna come?”

“Sure. Why do you play games on Monday?”

“They think it stops us from drinking after, I don’t even know, man, it’s just a weird thing this school does. None of my other schools did it.”

“How many schools have you actually…This is really pretty, Pete.” That’s when Mikey gets distracted by the fact they are sitting on the shore of a lake. Pete is still intoxicated by the scent of him. He thought it wouldn’t be so strong out here, but it feels worse, like it’s surrounding him and getting down under his skin. Pete wants to press his body up against his and make it so it’s all he can smell.

“Yeah, this is my favourite place in town. You better not bring a whole bunch of people and ruin it, okay? I’m trusting you.” It’s the vanilla; that tiny hint of it. Pete is waiting for the moment when he can bury his nose in his hair and work out if really is just hair products. Maybe Mikey just naturally smells like Pete’s collective idea of sex.

Mikey gives him a long look, and Pete thinks giddily he’s going to kiss him, and Pete is ready to do himself, but then Mikey speaks and Pete has to stop thinking about that and focus on the question. “If I come here by myself would I find you here?”

Pete thinks this is kind of an odd question, but he’s the one thinking about sexually attacking Mikey, so he figures he’s not in a good place to be passing judgement. “Maybe. I come here to clear my head sometimes.”

“But would I ruin it for you?”

Pete frowns, this seems like an even more peculiar question. “Of course not.”

“Okay.” Mikey nods and seems pleased. “Do lots of people know about this place?”

“Sort of. It’s kind of hard to get to unless you come out on that side,” He points across the lake. “You have to drive up a dirt road and most people don’t bother ‘cause it’s gotten a bit over grown and you have to stop driving and walk a little way to get to here. People are lazy.”

“What a waste.” Mikey mutters, picking up a stick and poking at the dirt they are sitting on, and Pete agrees.

“Mikeyway?”

“Yes?” Mikey looks up. Pete leans over and kisses his cheek messily; it’s a copout. He’s having self-doubt. He goes in too hard and bumps his teeth against Mikey’s cheekbone. Mikey sucks in a laboured breath anyway.

“Let’s go swimming.”

Mikey looks a little dazed, like he can’t take in both things at once, so Pete takes advantage of the situation and stands up, pulling his shirt over his head. He’s tugging off his socks when Mikey manages to formulate a sentence.

“It’ll be freezing! It’s almost winter, Pete!”

Pete undoes his jeans and grabs a hold of a tree, sticking a leg out at Mikey. “Pull,”

Mikey tries, but he’s a weed with no strength. Pete has to awkwardly shuffle around and tug at them ungracefully. Oh well. He gets a giggle from Mikey.

“How did you get them on?”

“With great difficulty. Lying down. Took a few minutes.” Pete finally gets them around his ankles and steps out. “They did their job, I saw you looking.”

The tips of Mikey’s ears go red. “Please say you aren’t taking those off too,” He says, indicating to Pete’s underwear.

“You wish.” Pete says flippantly. “You should be kicking yourself about the fact I even wore underwear today.”

Pete can’t be sure if it’s possible for Mikey’s ears to go redder, but if they can; they do.

It is freezing. Pete walks in up to his hips and then folds his legs up so he’s in up to his neck. He looks at Mikey, making tiny waves with his arms.

“It’s warm.” He calls.

“Bullshit.”

“This is why I’m eternally entertaining, by the way. I’m fun and spontaneous. C’mon, Mikeyway. Are you really going to let me freeze by myself?”

“You said it was warm.” Mikey sniffs.

Pete ignores him. He dunks his head under and gets back out; shaking his head so water goes everywhere. He grins and falls to his knees, pressing his whole body up against Mikey and soaking him right through.

“Next time,” he says, and Mikey shivers and tries weakly to push Pete away. “I’m not wearing underwear, and neither are you.”

***  
Pete very specifically doesn’t tell Clara that he skipped. He calls her and begs her to let him go to the diner after the game because he’s been “good.”

“Pete. You are grounded.” Pete holds a hand out to help Mikey back over the fence.

“It’s tradition. Please?” He begs, and it takes a whole minute for her to reply; he counts. Pete hears her sigh. She sounds funny on the phone, not as whole. He knows she hates phone calls; she hates mobiles in general. He wonders if it’s because she’s from the 1700’s.

“If you win.” She says stiffly, and promptly hangs up. Pete whoops and kisses Mikey on the cheek again.

“Success, Mikeyway!”

Mikey blushes.  
***

Pete plays the best he's ever played. He plays like if he plays hard enough he can get all the bullshit out of him. Maybe he'll stop hearing things that he shouldn't be able to hear and smelling everything like he's a freaking dog and maybe, just maybe, he'll stop fucking buzzing and sweating and twitching and feeling like he's about to explode and die.

They do win. Halfway through the game Clara looks like she wants to take it back, but after he's scored four goals and everyone's got him hoisted up on shoulders and carting him out of there, there's not much she can do. He watches her pink hair weaving through the crowd with Lindsey and driving away in the truck. She looks mad.

They fill out the diner, which yeah, is kind of shitty but Pete has a soft spot for anyway, and everyone surrounds him, chattering, and it's so loud he thinks his ears are going to start bleeding, especially since he can hear every freaking word everyone is saying clear as day; from the chef barking orders to the music in one kid’s ears. Beyonce, from the B’day era.  
He can smell the food cooking in kitchen, the toilet air freshener, the cigarette smoke in the parking lot. His dick has been hard in his pants for about a half hour now.

Clearly, his plan failed. Pete's on the edge just as much as before.

Pete feels like he's going to cry. He's searching for a way out of the mass of sweaty people surrounding him but he can't see over anyone because he's so freaking short. He's scared he's going to snap and hit someone, or scream so loud his throat tears to pieces and then he’s going to bleed out all over the floor, so when a hand touches his wrist and a voice filters into his ear he almost moans with relief.

"I'm going outside, wanna come?"

Pete finds it hard not to lean back into Mikey, the way his shoulders loosen with how close they are. He nods and lets himself be pulled along, through limbs and out the door to the parking lot. Mikey pulls out a smoke and offers it to him, but Pete shakes his head.

"You looked like you weren't enjoying that." Mikey observes. Pete watches his hands, slowly bringing the cigarette to his mouth, fingers wrapped around it. Some people would call them girl hands, but who cares. They're pretty, long clean lines and thin fingers. His dick twitches.

"It just got a bit loud." Pete toes at the ground, nudging a rock. He presses his back against the wall and slides down it. He tries to adjust his pants discreetly as he does so. He still has a boner.

"You okay?" Mikey asks, sitting down next to him.

Pete is not okay. Pete is still on fire inside. But it’s quieter out here, and Mikey's smell still feels like it’s familiar, the way it calms him. The smoke smell lingers in with all the others, and Pete wonders if he lent in and pressed his nose to Mikey's hair would the vanilla smell be localised there, or would it smell like smoke and pine and unwashed sheets as well? He tugs at his hair.

"I am now," Pete answers, when he realises that Mikey had asked him a question and he's just staring at him like a weirdo. Pete searches for something to say, anything. "It's a nice night." Pete internally groans.

Jesus, he's such a loser. He's talking about the weather.

Mikey doesn't seem phased. His mouth twitches a little at the corners and Pete thinks this could double as a real smile for him. His stomach does the triumphant flipping thing again, even if Mikey is amused at him and not with him.

"I like the sky when it's clear. Clouds are just annoying. It makes it colder, but I'm used to the cold where I’m from. Besides, you can see the stars." Mikey shifts over a little, pressing his shoulder up against Pete's, and his insides suddenly roar. His dick gets even harder, if that is possible. Pete grits his teeth and tries to focus.

“Where did you move from?” Pete asks.

“New York. I’m from Jersey, though.”

“Why did you move here?”

“My brother was finished with art school, that’s why we were there, and I wanted to move, so we did.” He takes one last drag of his smoke and flicks it away.

“And you’re staying in Lindsey’s… basement?”

Mikey laughs. “Yeah. Gerard, Lindsey and I are old friends. We’re looking for a place. I sleep in her guest room really, but Gee is down in the basement.”

Pete thinks that sounds kind of shit, but he doesn’t say anything. He knows how hard it is to afford a house and live without your parents, especially when you go to school.

“How old is your brother?”

“Twenty one.”

“Parents?”

“We’ve been legally recognised as adults.” Mikey says in a tone that means that’s all the information Pete is going to get.

Mikey points up at the sky at a cluster of stars. "Those ones are my favourite. They make up a few. There’s a Pegasus, which is pretty close to a unicorn so I like that one, but my favourite is Andromeda, or the Princess in Chains. Her parents angered Poseidon by telling him their daughter was more beautiful than all of the Nereids, which were a group of fifty sea nymphs.” Mikey runs a hand through his hair and continues. “Poseidon sent Cetus, a ravage sea monster to their country. An oracle told them that the only way to appease the monster and save their country was to chain Andromeda to a rock as a sacrifice. She was saved by Perseus on the Pegasus, because he saw her and fell in love with her. He turned the monster to stone with Medusa’s head.”

“They just sacrificed their daughter?”

“That’s what always gets me too. But I figure they believed the oracle’s decision was the only way out of it. But it was essentially her mother’s fault. She was very vain and boastful. Her arrogance almost cost her her daughter’s life. Her mother was punished too, but I don’t know that story well enough.”

Mikey is quiet for a long time. He lights another smoke. “That’s her, that one star, and the ones spurring out from her are her arms in chains.” Pete shifts awkwardly, trying to calm his dick and the stupid fire inside him. He switches his mind to the girl, chained, waiting for her death. Maybe he could write some poetry about this.

“So she never gets them off?” Pete asks.

“I guess not.” Mikey answers.

“That’s sad.” Pete says. “They’ll forever remind her of it.”

“I think so too.”

Pete closes his eyes and rests his head on the wall, but he can feel Mikey’s shoulder, still pressed up against him, and at any other time he’d probably lean in further, make a move or something. But Pete’s dick is so hard, he’s so fucking turned on, he’s worried he’d yank Mikey’s dick out and fuck him right here in the car park. He’s worried he’s going to vomit all over him, his stomach twisting into a knot.  
Mikey isn’t aware of all this. He does lean in a little, shifting so he’s sitting facing Pete a little more and puts a hand on his knee. Pete gets spooked, his stomach jumping into his throat, the buzzing getting even louder. He jumps up, tripping a little as he dusts off the back of his jeans, head swimming. “I’m going to go back in.”

Mikey’s eyebrows knit together. “I’ll come, just let me finish this.” He shakes his cigarette at him.

“No, no, it’s fine. I’m… I’m good, it’s fine.” He gestures wildly, backing up, stomach full of fluttering. He searches for something to grab. He ends up back with his fringe again, shoving it back.

“Pete,” Mikey drops his cigarette on the ground and stamps it out. “I didn’t mean to do that, I won’t-“

Oh god, now he thinks he… Pete makes a face as his stomach drops. There goes any chance he had. “It’s fine, really, no, I’m okay, okay,” Pete turns and says over his shoulder. “I’m fine.”

Pete all but runs inside, slamming the toilet door shut and shoves his hand down his pants, barely getting them down and doing three strokes before he’s coming, sticky and hot all over his hand and in his underwear. He barely chokes out a moan, but his vision whites out for three long seconds.  
It doesn’t help anything, except now his dick isn’t pushing against his pants painfully. He falls to his knees and hurls, heaving so hard his stomach hurts. He vomits for at least a minute, until he’s got nothing left, he’s heaving up acidic bile that burns the back of his throat and all Pete wants to do is to sleep for at least a week straight and for this all to go away.

Pete's not sure how he gets back out of there, but he must look desperate because no one stops him on the way. He's pressing one on his mobile before he's even out the door, panting into the mouth piece. He feels like running would help, but he feels so sick that he'll probably have to stop every few minutes to vomit on the side of the road and that kind of defeats the purpose.

"Pete?" Clara's voice sounds thick and sleepy.

"Are you at Lindsey's?" He chokes out, collapsing against the wall outside. His forehead is damp from sweat.

"Yeah." He hears banging in the background, the sound of boots being pulled on, keys jingling. "I'm coming to get you." And of course she knows, she always does, and it freaks him out and he’s grateful all at once. The pain in his head spikes for an excruciating second.

"I think I need to see a doctor." He whimpers, mopping up his sweat with the sleeve of his hoodie. His eyes blur over with tears. The smells around him are invasive, thick in the air. They fill his nose, so strong it burns.

"You're okay, baby." Clara coos. "I'm on my way." He hears her call out. "Gee! I need you!" And then there's a guy’s voice, with a Jersey accent, muffled so much that Pete can only make out the words stay, Mikey, Frank and feed. His gut does another triple barrel roll when he thinks back to Mikey and the way he acted. He must've gone home to Lindsey’s. Pete rolls forward onto the grass and chokes out more bile, hacking up red-tinged spit, thick with blood.

"Oh my god, okay, Pete, try to focus on something else."

He moans with the discomfort, pulling off his hoodie, head throbbing. "I can smell everything, Clara. Everything. I think you need to take me to the hospital." He repeats.

A car starts on the other end, and Pete couldn't mistake the roar of that fucking crappy pickup truck if he tried. He pictures her struggling to yank at the gears, the way she always does, keeping in time with the sound of the engine. "You're going to be fine. I'm not taking you to the hospital."

"I'm dying." He moans again, curling up on the grass. The pain in his head gets worse. He closes his eyes.

She scoffs. "You aren't dying. You're becoming stronger." Someone says something to her left, and he hears Lindsey reply affirmatively.

"Are you driving? While you're on the phone?" He asks, tightening the arm around his stomach. It feels like the buzzing is now made of knives, pressing into the edges of his body and trying to tear through his bodies flesh casing.

She lets out a shaky laugh. "Gerard is driving. I'm okay. So are you, huh? Pete? Hey?"

Pete isn't okay. He hasn't been okay all afternoon. All week. He makes a non-committal sound and passes out.


	5. Forest

When Pete comes to, he's on their couch, which is really old and ugly but soft and squashy. He opens his eyes to Lindsey, framed by the disappearing afternoon light from the window behind her. Pete is confused for a moment, but he looks at his watch and realises he’s pretty much slept the whole night and day away. He has a faint memory of someone with small arms carrying him to the couch, out of the pickup truck.

Lindsey looks exhausted and a little cranky. She's sitting in front of his coffee table, where a huge book full of her curly scribble is sitting open. She looks up at Pete and says, softly, "Gee."

A boy - a man? He looks like he could simultaneously pass for twenty five and fifteen - shuffles on his knees into Pete's view, three pens in his mouth and wad of paper in his hand. An absurdly vibrant piece of red hair hangs in his eyes. It's the kind of red that only comes in boxes of dye, like the outside toffee apples. It sticks up oddly, like it's so greasy and unwashed that when the guy runs his hands through it, it just stays the way it's left last.

"Pete? I'm Gerard, Mikey’s brother." Gerard offers a hand to Pete, helping him sit up.

“You don’t look like him.” Pete voice is shot to pieces, raspy and wrecked. His head feels okay. The buzzing is still there, but it's muted. The discomfort is gone, but his whole body feels like it’s been through a shredder. He winces. "Where's Clara?"

"She's in the kitchen." Lindsey says, turning the page. "She's coming back."

Clara walks through the door way then, as if on cue, and folds her arms and leans on the doorframe. "Hey."

"How do you feel?" Gerard asks. Lindsey scribbles at something on the paper. Pete nods.

“Achy. But good.”

"Is it better than before?" Clara asks.

"Of course it is, Jesus, stop asking him stupid questions." Lindsey grumbles. "Gerard, you're making it hurt less and I gave him something before. It's going to come back, Pete." She warns.

Pete sniffles and tries to sink into the couch and disappear forever. "Am I dying?"

Gerard laughs a huge, honking laugh. Clara rubs her eyes tiredly but lets out an amused huff.

"You are so melodramatic,” She says fondly, rolling her eyes. “No, you aren't, you-“

Pete doesn’t get an answer. The front door slams open and bangs against the wall, shaking the picture frames that hang there. The one of Pete when he was ten at Disney World, up on Clara’s shoulders, falls to the ground and makes a cracking noise. Pete leaps up, landing on his feet even though ten seconds ago he felt so shaky his knees should be buckling right now. Everyone in the room turns to look as Mikey strides through the front door, fists clenched.

“You fucking bitch.” He hisses, stalking past everyone and stopping in front of Clara. She’s got a good inch on him, but he somehow he manages to loom over her, his face dark, eyes black in the way eyes look when they’re filled with angry shadows.

“Mikey,” she warns shakily.

“No! You didn’t fucking tell me this was happening; you wanna keep him for yourself, you’re trying to keep us apart, it’s been a whole day and you haven’t even told me he’s sick; this is bullshit-”

“Mikey!” Lindsey barks, hoisting herself up from her spot on the floor. “She wants him to awaken in peace, that’s all. You’ll just be another thing to worry ab-“

Mikey ignores her. “You are selfish. You make me sick.” Clara’s mouth drops open, and she flails her hands around uselessly, as if trying to grab words to say.

“Don’t, Mikey, please, that isn’t fair.” She says, husky and quiet.

“It is exactly fair, you have had everything I couldn’t have for seven years and I’ve been patient and now it’s finally here, I have another chance, I wanna help him and you want to take him away! Fuck you!”

Pete makes a move to touch her arm, cut Mikey off, to do something, but Gerard beats him to it, shoving his body between them, face thunderous.

“Did you leave Frank at home? Alone?” His hair is sticking up wildly, but his hands are clenched at his sides, just like Mikey’s, and in that moment Pete thinks they suddenly look very much alike.

Mikey’s face falls for a second, and he drops his eyes to the floor.

“Oh my god.” Gerard mutters darkly. “Do you realise how hard this is for everyone else too? He hasn’t fed in two weeks! I can’t believe you would do that, how dare you come in here and accuse her of being selfish when that is exactly what you are doing, you little-“

Gerard raises his hand up, and everything happens at once. At the same time Gerard slams his fist into the bookshelf beside him, Pete shoves him away, jumping in front of Mikey and putting his arm like a barrier across him. A low, guttural snarl rips from his throat as a vase unbalances and rocks violently on the bookshelf and falls to the floor, smashing all over the floor. Clara screams. Gerard falls back into her and they struggle to stay upright, Clara’s back hitting the wall behind her with a dull thud.

Everyone is frozen for a moment. Then Lindsey steps forward.

“Pete,” She says softly, hand outstretched. Another snarl escapes his lips.

“Don’t touch him.” He growls, bending a little, in a half crouch, his head pounding. Everything in him screams _no, leave him alone._

“It’s okay, Pete.” Mikey says. Pete feels his hand press down softly on his shoulder, a light weight. “Pete, he wasn’t going to hit me. He wouldn’t. It’s okay. Gee, can you calm him down? Pete, come on, it’s okay.”

The anger in him dissolves, washed over with waves of calm. Pete relaxes his stance slowly, standing up straight, wringing his hands and tugging on his fringe. Mikey drops his hand slowly, dragging it down Pete’s arm on the way. Pete shivers and clutches his elbow.

“Um,” Pete says. He reaches up to rub the back of his neck. “Sorry? I don’t… I don’t know…”

Mikey throws himself at Pete suddenly, gathering him up in a hug and squashing Pete’s arms to his sides, burying his head into Pete. He’s probably aiming for the dip in Pete’s shoulders, but it’s too quick to be neat and he presses in a little off centre, hitting him in the throat and winding him a little. Pete doesn’t know what’s happening; why he’s snarling at people’s brothers and being hugged, but he weaves his fingers desperately through Mikey’s hair because it feels natural and his gut says to, and fuck, he wants to. He clutches on to him as hard as possible with the amount of movement Mikey is allowing him and feels his breath fanning out damply across his collar bones. Pete breathes out all the tenseness in his shoulders and the shaky feeling in his knees comes back. He leans into to Mikey and lets him hold him upright.

“Thank you.” Mikey mouths into Pete’s neck, and maybe Pete isn’t meant to hear it, maybe it’s just meant to get lost into the fabric of Pete’s hoodie and stay a soft whisper that Pete will never hear, but Pete does hear it and it’s the best thing he’s ever heard. He squeezes Mikey back even tighter.

Someone clears their throat. Pete sees Clara punch Lindsey in the arm. Mikey tugs himself out of Pete’s embrace, wiping his mouth, looking disorientated and confused, and falls onto the couch, resting his head in his hands.

Gerard’s eyes are wide like saucers. He stares down at the vase, like he can’t believe he did that. He looks at Pete. “Sorry.” He mumbles, making an ‘oops?’ face at Clara. She wipes at her eyes. She’s crying. It takes until Gerard’s sunk down next to Mikey and has him in his arms that Pete realises Mikey is crying too.

“It’s okay.” Clara sniffs, giving Pete a funny look. “We never liked that vase, did we, Pete?”

He wrinkles his nose and takes a deep breath. “No. It’s awful.”

Mikey makes a weepy noise and everyone kind of collectively winces.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have left him.” Mikey chokes out. Pete wants him back in his arms, but he’s not sure if he’s allowed to do that. He barely knows Mikey. He doesn’t know what’s just happened; he has no clue what is going on, but that feels like a recurring feeling for him lately. So he just stays where he is and tries not to fuck everything up like he feels like he has been doing recently.

“He’ll be fine,” Lindsey says. “He’s Frank.”

Mikey suddenly gets up, tugging off Gerard’s arms. “We did this wrong. We planned this all wrong.” He backs towards the door, eyes widened like a spooked deer. “It’s not going to work.”

No one moves until after he’s gone out the door. Pete can see him getting smaller as he runs down the porch stairs, and then something kicks in and he follows him out there, sprinting down the stairs. He can feel everyone behind him, but Pete doesn’t turn, just slows, watching Mikey walk out of the yard. _You barely know him. You’re going crazy over someone you don’t even fucking know._

Pete runs, away from there, heart thumping in his chest. Clara screams his name. He runs harder, away from all of them. He can see them, in his head, even though he hasn’t turned around. Clara watches him, face shining with drying tears, arms slack against her sides. Her mouth hangs open. Lindsey stands next to her, one pigtail fallen loose, her scarf so twisted it’s barely hanging onto her neck. Gerard clutches her hand.

Pete screams something incoherent, and he’s crying now, he can feel it, burning his lungs and soaking his wind whipped cheeks. Pete hates this so much; that he feels like he can’t even trust the last person he had left in his life he could completely rely on while his body is betraying him. He clenches his fists so hard they hurt and turns and runs, past houses and through backyards, into the forest that borders the fringes of town. He can’t hear anything over the pounding in his head. He has no idea where Mikey went, but he feels weird about following him anyway, so he just runs towards the forest, hoping to get swallowed up by the black of the shadows that threaten you from behind tree trunks and lurk inside bushes.

He doesn’t get swallowed up, of course. He pretends that he has, letting the silence envelop him, the only noise his little steady puffs. He stops after what feels like seconds but is probably half an hour or even more, somewhere where all the trees look the same and before Pete would’ve been worried about finding his way back out. But now Pete can smell the road, just a little way out, and he just keeps going, walking now. He’ll be able to find it again by scent just fine.

He can smell them. He can smell Gerard - pencil sharpening’s, hair grease and unwashed sheets, just like Mikey - in the pickup truck. He can smell Lindsey- apple hair products, unscented deodorant and the way her trench coat smells a little damp from the last time they got caught in the rain together two weeks ago. He can smell Clara walking through the trees and crying. She smells like tears, like his bed sheets and her pillows, which smell like fresh linen because that’s the one thing she always washes, and her honey shampoo. She smells like his scarf because they both look similar and she’s probably accidently wearing his. She smells like their house. She smells like home. She’s the one thing that always does, even when they’ve just moved and nothing feels right. Except her.

Pete has to stop then, because he’s so confused. His brain is running a million miles an hour and he’s starting to cry, his vison blurring so much he’s having trouble navigating over all the roots.

He rubs harshly at the sticky feeling of drying tears around his eyes and sits down against the edge of a tree. The moon is bright; he’s pretty sure tomorrow or the day after is when it’s full. The forest where he lives is sparse enough that it leaks through the trees just enough to light up the woods. Or maybe he’s got night vision now too. He’s not complaining. That’s the one thing about this weird ass situation that isn’t driving him crazy.  Although this heightened sense of smell is helping him be alone, for the time being. Pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, he grits his teeth. The buzzing gets worse.

He hasn’t really had time to sit still and just think about any of this since it started. It feels like years ago, but it’s been five days since the party. He thinks. He’s slept so much lately he’s not even sure any more. He doesn’t understand why Clara didn’t warn him about any of this.

_‘You aren't dying. You're becoming stronger.’_

Well, at least he’s not dying. He’s guessing dying wouldn’t be much fun. Not that this is fun. He groans. He just wants someone to clearly explain what the fuck is happening to him. No, he wants this to stop. He can feel himself, teetering on the edge. He’s ready to snap. There’s a growl just ready and waiting in his chest, and it erupts when the squirrel runs out across Pete’s path. He doesn’t remember reaching out, or moving, but suddenly his chest is heaving and Pete is panting, and there’s a bloody squirrel head with dead eyes in one hand and it’s dripping, mangled body in the other. He drops them both and has his back pressed up against a tree, eyes wide and heart pounding, when Frank appears from out of fucking nowhere and Pete quickly wipes away the freaked out hot tears away. If he’s going to be murdered, he wants to do it with dignity. Does he still have dignity?  Heat flashes in his head and he teeters on the edge of a hot need to be the one doing the murdering. _Tear his throat out_ , something in him says.

“Pete, right?”

Pete growls softly, through stupid watery eyes – betrayal, he thinks. He leans down into a half crouch and bares his teeth at Frank, the skin on his hands tugging from the dried blood on them. One part hums yes in a slippery, sultry tone, and one screams no, husky and desperate.

“Dude.” Frank says, holding out his hands. His eyes flick to Pete’s blood covered hands. “I’m not going to attack you. It’s okay.” He shoves his hands back in his pockets. Pete looks down at the mangled squirrel, and Frank follows his eyes but doesn’t say anything, just toes at it with his shoe and looks up at Pete and smiles. “I was just out walking. I smelt you.”

Pete relaxes a little, staying crouched and looking up at Frank, which admittedly isn’t very much of a head tilt. “You smelt me?” Pete couldn’t smell Frank. Now he’s here he can’t really either, but there’s a hint of the unwashed sheets, same as the Way brothers. And something warm and rich, and something else… maybe rust? But it’s barely there, not like the thick, heady scent of the others. If he wasn’t trying really hard, Pete wouldn’t be able to smell Frank at all.

“Yeah. You’re a bit harder to track, you barely smell of anything, but I caught a bit of something and decided to follow it. I have really strong senses.” Frank explains simply. His hood creeps back slowly; jolted by the way he’s bouncing on his toes.

“I think I do too…now. Am I like you?” Pete asks. Frank’s hood falls off.

Frank laughs. He pulls back his lips over his teeth with his fingers and runs his tongue over the long, thick fangs that suddenly extend from his canines and appear there. “Nope! I’m a vampire.”

Pete chokes a little on nothing, standing up from his crouch. He wishes he was taller than Frank, to appear all imposing and scary or something, but at most he might be like, an inch on him. Pete’s pretty sure even if he was seven foot he’d still get old women messing up his hair and calling him precious. _Hmph._

“Don’t worry dude, I’m not going to feed off you or anything. I’m a vampire, not an asshole.” Frank grins again. The fangs are gone, back to the normal canines. Pete is marginally creeped out by the fact they appear to be like cat claws; retractable or some shit.

“Okay.” He takes a shaky breath and tries to look away from where the fangs where a moment ago. “What am I then?”

Frank frowns. Pete is finding himself enraptured with how animated Frank is; Pete wants to talk to him for hours to watch how he expresses himself through each word. He wonders if maybe that’s a vampire thing; to draw you in, or if Frank is just something special. “I don’t know. You’re definitely one of us, something special. Sucks right? You’re an unlucky one, like me. Some of us don’t go through a change, some just develop powers and have to learn to use them, but then there’s some like us. I was in blinding pain for a straight day, never mind the monthly build up to that. Then I collapsed and basically died and stayed like that for a week before coming back to life and going ravage. I coughed all the blood up out of my body before I died, too. Literally. I’m empty now. Just cold skin and heavy bones.”

“Oh my god.” Pete blanches. He pictures Frank doubled over, clutching his stomach, and blood spilling it of his mouth in a steady gush. “Please tell me that is not going to happen to me.”

“Nah, not likely. You aren’t in pain, are you?”

Pete thinks this over, feeling the now-familiar buzzing feeling running through his body and the way all the smells make his head ache. “It’s more discomfort. To the point where it gets too much. Last time I blacked out.”

Frank screws his mouth up into a thoughtful expression and shrugs. “I don’t know, dude. Wait and see, I guess.” Frank pauses on the edge of another sentence, pulling his lip ring into his mouth. He opens his mouth, closes it again and says, “Do you wanna play?”

“Play?”

“Despite what my short legs would lead you to believe, I’m really fast. And strong. Being a super terrifying creature of the night comes with great jumping skills as well. I’m bored and full of energy. You’re fast too, right?”

“Yeah,” Pete nods. He looks around, thinking. “Yeah. I’m fast. I’m not a super-terrifying-creature-of-the-night-fast. But, yeah, okay. I’ll play.”

Frank grins.

***

Mikey is just walking around the forest, hands shoved in his pockets. He feels like his resting bitch face is pretty solid right now. Yeah, he’s sulking. Whatever. He’s a royal fuck up. He’s allowed to sulk.

It’s pretty dark, and this isn’t really safe. Mikey isn’t very strong. Scratch that, Mikey isn’t strong at all. Gerard usually makes him take Frank with him when he goes on his forest walks. Maybe Mikey could make whatever is attacking him fall asleep, since that would be his only useful power in said situation, but he has to be focussed or touching the intended recipient for that.

Anyway, the worst Mikey can hear is giggling. Right now it’s filtering through the trees, and Mikey has a weird moment where he pictures the laughter as something tangible, almost like deer, bounding and weaving over the underbrush and through the trees to reach his ears. Mikey follows it to investigate. It’s mixed in with playful growling and hissing, and these adorable little happy squeals, but he’s pretty sure that’s Frank’s growls. Shit. Of course Frank left the house, he can’t sit still when he hasn’t been fed. And Mikey just left him there, alone. Shit fuck shit.

It is Frank. He knew it all sounded familiar, and now he knows why. It’s Pete too, running after Frank and tackling him down onto the grass of a very small clearing, wrestling him until Frank manages to tug himself away and it starts all over again. Mikey watches them from a little way away, hidden in the shadows, a smile tugging at his lips as Frank squeals, jumping in that freaky way of his and grabbing a hold of a branch as Pete leaps up under him. He misses and falls back onto the ground, and they both laugh, loud and clear in the dark. It cuts through the thickness in Mikey’s chest and makes him think for a moment that if Pete keeps laughing like that Mikey won’t ever sleep. He’ll just sit at Pete’s feet and listen to that laugh, over and over. And Mikey will be better then he’s been in one hundred and thirty years.

Frank sticks his tongue out at Pete, who is now running and using the momentum to crawl up the tree trunk at an impressive speed and leaping up towards the branch Frank is perched on. He ends up snapping it after three tries and the both of them collapse on top of each other, rolling around a little so their backs are on the ground beside each other, huffing out giggles. Pete turns his head and looks right at Mikey. Mikey freezes, but Pete just smiles a little and it feels like the longest and shortest moment in Mikey’s whole life all at once, because he’s falling into Pete’s eyes and forgetting everything around him, then Pete looks away and Mikey can breathe again.

 _He knew I was here._ Mikey knew Frank knew, with his super strength nose and all. Frank is creepy and permanently tracks Mikey in the back of his head for convenience, and sometimes he’ll pop up out of nowhere next to him and Mikey will let out these girly squeals that he hopes no one else ever hears. If Mikey is near Frank, Frank knows. But Pete knew too, he looked right at him, and he wasn’t shocked. Something that could be hope lights up inside him.

Mikey stays in the trees, leaning against a tall one and watches them, just like at the party, too scared to speak but too enthralled by Pete to leave.

“I like looking up at the sky like this. It makes me feel so small,” Pete says. They lay side by side still.

“I always feel insignificant,” Frank murmurs. Mikey pictures his cheeks colouring, the way they used to before he became a vampire and he couldn’t blush anymore.

“But I feel like I’m exploding, like everything inside my body is too big for its casing and I’m full of this incessant buzzing.” Pete lets out a huge, exhausted sigh. “Lying like this makes me feel like if the universe can hold all that in place, I can take a little buzzing.”

Pete sounds like he really can’t take it. Mikey is ready to hit something, he’s so frustrated. He wants to be there for him, help him, just do something. Hold him all together, be his universe. Tears threaten to spill over, but Mikey blinks rapidly and thinks he’s safe. He attempts to melt back into the trees even more just in case.

“Thanks, Frank,” Pete says earnestly. “I feel better.”

“Yeah?” Frank says. “Yeah. Me too. Haven’t had a run for ages.”

Mikey feels instantly guilty, even though he tries to plays with Frank all the time. He’s not fast enough to sate all his excess vampire energy, especially when he’s on edge from not feeding.

“Gerard is coming.” Frank says knowingly. He sounds like Lindsey, when she says it’s about to rain and then it does a second later. She always raises an eyebrow like they didn’t all believe her in the first place. Show-off.

“I know,” Pete answers in a sad tone.

“You wanna go before he gets here?” Frank offers. “I’ll come if you want.”

Mikey is surprised. Frank doesn’t want to run away from Gerard. Frank hates stressing out Gerard. He would be with him every second of the day if he could, would probably carry around all of Gerard’s art shit just so Gerard is eternally happy. That’s all Gerard needs; Frank and some paper.

“Nah,” Pete says. He turns his head and looks right at Mikey again. This time he doesn’t smile, but his eyes are soft as he stares at him. Mikey feels exposed and naked, but he can’t move.

“Jesus fucking Christ, you fucking motherfuckers, I swear to fucking god, stupid fucking cocksuckers…” Gerard yanks Frank into a standing position and his words get lost into Frank’s hoodie as he buries his face there.

“You wanna say fuck again, Gee?”

“Yeah, I do, fuck you,” Gerard says, muffled.

“Hey, we’re fine.” Frank says. “Pete and I had a run.”

Gerard slaps Frank on the back of the head. Mikey instantly feels a pang of jealousy at their ease.

“You, you little shit.” Gerard says to Pete, in what Mikey knows is his meant-to-be-scary tone. Gerard can’t be scary. He has messy girl hair and talks with one side of his mouth. “I…Are you okay?” Mikey almost snorts at that weak attempt.

Pete nods and tugs the hair at the nape of his neck. He looks a little ashamed. “I’m okay.”

“And where’s Mikey?” Gerard asks, and he does a shit job of keeping the worry out of his voice, although Mikey can tell he’s trying. Mikey feels awful. Not enough to move. Just enough to wring his hands together.

Pete and Frank both are silent for a second, but Gerard must mistake hesitation for shame of not finding him.

“I don’t know.” Pete toes at a stick on the ground. “Haven’t seen him.”

Frank nods along and shrugs. “Sorry, Gee.”

Gerard frowns, and Mikey watches him call bullshit in his head. “Can’t you smell him, Frankie?”

Frank does the blushing-without-actually-blushing face again. “Uh, I wasn’t thinking about that.” More lies. Frank always knows where Mikey is, even if it’s only vaguely. It’s actually really creepy, and Mikey only lets it slide because Frank is his best friend. “I think he’s just walking around, out there,” He waves a hand in a vague direction; Mikey rolls his eyes. Stupid fucking vampires with their shitty lying skills. What sort of vampire is Frank? He’s weedy and short and completely not scary and he can’t lie to Gerard, scratch that, _anyone_ , for shit. Fuck, Frank is mildly adorable. Vampires aren’t adorable. They’re sexy or some shit, not 5’6 and scrawny.

“He’ll be fine Gee, it’s Mikey, let him be alone.”

Pete catches Mikey’s eye again. His expression is hard to read, but Mikey thinks it’s something along the lines of wondering what is so special about him that you can say ‘it’s Mikey’ and it’s enough of an answer. Mikey bites his lip.

Gerard just pulls out his phone and taps out a message to someone, probably Clara, and leads them away, before sending another worried glance out to the trees.

“We are going to tell you everything, Pete. I promise.” Mikey hears Gerard say, before they disappear out of Mikey’s admittedly shit hearing range. He doesn’t hear Pete reply, but he can picture his concerned face - the one he uses without thinking, like, _all_ the fucking time - without seeing him. 

“Mother fucker,” Mikey says.

 


	6. Explanations

Even by the time Pete is wrapped up in an old blanket on Lindsey’s couch with a hot coffee in his hand, he still wants to go all the way back to the clearing and tell Gerard exactly where Mikey is, so Gerard can yell at him and ultimately bring Mikey back to the house. He’d be so mad, Pete just knows, but he would also stand in the corner, silent and stony faced, arms crossed and glaring at everyone. Pete is weirdly fond of this idea. But he’s more fond of Mikey – okay yes, so he likes him, let it go – so he doesn’t say anything, just buries deeper into the blanket, which is dotted with little ladybugs. And he waits.

The other four are positioned around the room. Clara has pulled her cardigan sleeves down over her hands, like little gloves, and is sipping tea shakily. Pete lets her sit next to him, but he doesn’t make a move to make her feel better about upsetting him, even though she looks pale and small, as if her body is disappearing into the couch cushions. When she looks like this; sort of like the way she looks before she disappears for a night, Pete wants to wrap _her_ up in blankets and make her sleep for ten years. He settles for pressing the back of his hand up against the side of her thigh.

Gerard shifts guilty in the armchair, sitting on top of his hands. He can see Clara making an apparent effort to not tell him off for fidgeting, but she’s frowning harder at him every moment, and Pete feels his scowl twitch despite himself.

Lindsey is not buying his drowning-in-self-pity bullshit. She hands Frank book by book from the shelf, and he diligently delivers them to the coffee table in a stack instructed to be ordered by date. Pete tries not to giggle at Frank, whose frowning in concentration at the stack, tongue poking out of the end of his mouth. Clara breaks before him, muffling a snort into her hand and coughing over it. Pete can’t stop himself from laughing with her, and the little, secret grin she gives him makes him feel a lot better.

“Frankie, could you get The Book?”

Frank comes back with the book Lindsey had at Pete and Clara’s house, then settles at Gerard’s feet, legs crossed.

“Alright.” Lindsey says, kneeling in front of the coffee table and straightening everything. The power must’ve been shut off, because the microwave is flashing 10:00 am in little green letters, and it’s still dark out.

“Well,” He finally speaks. Frank nods at him encouragingly from the corner of the room happily. “Start talking.”

“Maybe we should wait for Mikey,” Gerard says, wringing his hands and sending little worried glances at the front door.

“Yeah, you know what, fuck Mikey.” Pete almost growls, and he doesn’t mean it, but he wants to know what is going on. _Right now._

“He got so mad last time.” Gerard says helplessly, turning to the girls like he’s looking for support. Lindsey just rolls her eyes. Clara looks like she’s going to be sick.

“He can get mad again then.” Lindsey says. “He-“

“He’s nowhere near here; he’s like a mile south in the forest and he’s not moving around; he’s probably sitting down and sulking.” Pete sniffs and looks at the ceiling. “He’s not on his way back.”

Four pairs of eyes and silence meet this statement.

“Well, he’s right.” Frank says. “He’s about a mile away and he’s most definitely sulking.”

“You said you couldn’t smell him very well!” Gerard exclaims, throwing his hands up and jumping up from his seat.

“Uhh,” Frank looks at the wall opposite Gerard.

“You lied to me!”

“Uhh,” Frank continues intelligently. Clara manages to hide another snort inside a cough and manages to start a real coughing fit. Pete pats her on the back much too hard, laughing, and she flips him off.

Lindsey sighs heavily, and Pete thinks maybe Clara and her picked that up from one another. “Frank, there’s an opened packet of chips that I’d really love to be eating right now. Gerard, sit down... _sit down._ Clara, come help me with this, I can’t find your page. I think the bookmark we made for you fell out.” She flips through the book. It’s well-worn and dog eared. Some pages are stained with what looks like dirt and maybe tea. Clara always does that; reads something with a cup of tea then spills it on the pages. He wonders if it was her.

Clara coughs once more and flaps her hand at Lindsey. “It’s near the – _jesus_ – middle somewhere, Frank put it back wrong.”

“Oh, for fucks sake, it’s like the rest of you make a collective effort to fuck up my organisation. We do this all the time, how hard is it to just - Gerard, _sit down!_ ”

Gerard makes a guilty face and sits back down. Frank throws the packet of chips at Lindsey and sits on the arm of the chair next to Gerard. “We _used_ to do it all the time. He just needs to chill. You got no chill, Gee.”

“Fuck off,” Gerard mumbles.

“I’ll start,” Frank says, ignoring Gerard and barreling right over Lindsey’s protest of ‘No, Frank, I have a _system._ ’

“I’m a bloodsucking creature of the night; otherwise known as a vampire. I have retractable fangs and super strength and while changing into a vampire was a bitch, being one is pretty cool, besides the not being able to go out in the sun thing and low-key wanting to kill you all so I can make a cocktails out of your insides. Oh, and I don’t have a reflection, which kind of sucks, cause I’m fucking adorable and I miss looking at my pretty face, but oh well. I have cool powers now!”

“ _My system_ ,” Lindsey moans, and bangs her head on the table a few times.

“So, Pete, are you scared of me?” Frank asks.

Pete thinks about this very carefully, chewing the inside of his cheek. “A little. I guess I should be, you being a ‘blood sucking creature of the night’ and all, but, and don’t take this in the wrong way, you don’t look very scary. Also, and well, you could be lying, but you promised you wouldn’t bite me, despite what you just said about wanting to make me into a cocktail. That I wouldn’t really appreciate.”

“I promise I’m not lying. I have _control_.” Frank answers haughtily. “I don’t want to bite you. I like you.” Frank says earnestly. He smiles at Pete, waits until he gets one back, then turns back to everyone else.  “Guys, if he’s not scared of me, he won’t be scared of you.” Frank shrugs. “Hurry up and tell him everything already.”

“Are you all vampires?” Pete asks. “Are you a special vampire with healing powers?” He looks at Clara. She chuckles and shakes her head.

“ _The system!_ ” Lindsey exclaims. “Shut up now, all of you. Now Pete, stop me if you are confused.” Pete nods. “So, there is this thing that kind of just…happens. It’s where a sixteen or seventeen year old will begin to develop powers, or even become a creature of some form.

“As soon as the powers begin to develop the person will stop aging. We have come to call the process of ceased aging and power development ‘awakening’, and we generally just refer to fully awakened people as ‘specials or supernaturals’ but we aren’t sure if that’s correct. We’ve kind of just flailed our way through this.”

She gestures down at the book. “Everything in this book is unofficial records of things we’ve come across. Everything has just been named by us. You can look at it in a minute. We divided the book up between two types of specials: creatures and non-creatures, but the lines have gotten a lot blurrier since we started the book. We still use those two categories, but not as harshly, because they don’t always apply or we aren’t sure where someone fits. But, for an easy example, take Frank. He is a creature, which we usually describe as someone who has gone through a change to become something else. He is what we refer to as a vampire, because he needs blood to survive and has some other attributes that people typically assign to vampires. Not all creatures are as noticeable or clear, like Clara. She’ll explain herself in a minute.”

“Then there are people like me and Gerard. We identify as non-creatures: someone who develops powers but is still human in most aspects of the word. I am a clairvoyant.” Lindsey tugs out the hair band from her right pigtail and reties it as she speaks. "It’s just my fancy way of saying I can sort of tell the future. Not really clear visions, that’s only Mikey. But I get fuzzy images and feelings. I just know things sometimes. Not always, and sometimes it’s stronger than others. Sometimes I can pinpoint it, sometimes I can’t. Like, tomorrow? It’s going to rain. I just know it will; it’s like knowing tomorrow is also Tuesday. But sometimes it’s just a weak feeling; I’ll shake someone’s hand and I’ll get a bad feeling. Then they die a week later. It’s all very subjective. But it still comes in handy. Cool?”

“Cool? Fucking A!” Pete exclaims. “Fucking sick, fucking _awesome!_ Are you like, old as shit too?”

“I was born in 1740.” Lindsey answers, smirking.

Pete is shocked into silence for a moment. “Wow. That makes you…”

“Two hundred and seventy. I was 16 when I awakened.”

“Oh my god. Wow. Are you all that old? Haven’t you gained new people along the way? What even is this? Are you guys all just friends?” Pete flicks his eyes eagerly across all of them.

“Wow, slow down, crazy.” Lindsey holds up a hand. “I’m the oldest. I met Clara 20 years after I awakened. Gerard a few years after that. Mikey was a funny case. They’re brothers. Mikey just came with us when he was fifteen, and we didn’t expect him to awaken since it’s not a family thing or anything, but apparently Mikey is special. We don’t tell each other’s stories out of respect, so you’ll have to ask him all about that.”

“I’m only 30,” Frank says. “I awakened in 1996. I’m the baby here.”

“Yes,” says Clara, her eyes crinkling with laughter. “He just followed us around until we got tired of telling him to go home.”

“You don’t just let you best friend leave without you.” Frank pouts.

“Best friends with hot brothers?” Clara raises an eyebrow. Gerard goes bright red. Frank flips her off.

“The four of us used to help kids like you, explain to them what they are and make their awakening less confusing and painful.” Lindsey says, ignoring the rest with an eye roll. “I get a lot of feelings about awakening kids, so we decided to help them. We’ve solved a few mysteries and stopped a few crazy kids doing some bad shit as well. Clara, Gerard and I’s powers together are all really helpful in these situations, and Mikey always comes in handy at some point.”

“And they are ever grateful to me because I’m their muscle.” Frank grunts as he puffs his chest out. He manages to look even smaller than usual. Lindsey laughs at him; Clara shakes her head fondly.

“Well,” Pete says, turning to Gerard. “What do you do?”

Gerard looks wary for a second, and then lets a smile creep up onto his face as Frank nods at him reassuringly.

"I am 183," Gerard says, like it’s a well-rehearsed speech. Pete figures it is. "And I am an Empath. I can sense people's emotions and affect them. Some people are different and more difficult to affect."

"It tires him out, if lots of people around him feel strong emotions." Clara says.

"It's a lot better now." He adds. "It's only with crowds or really freaked out people, because it’s almost as if I am feeling your emotions right along with my own, and stopping them from mixing together requires effort. And I find affecting strong emotions is difficult, those take effort."

“Are you making me feel calm right now?” Pete asks.

Gerard frowns a little. “Yes. A little, but not too much. You are taking all of this extremely well.”

“Is it difficult?”

“No. I’m not even focussed, I forgot I was doing it.” He cocks his head to the side. “Do you want me to stop?”

Pete thinks it over, chewing the inside of his cheek. “For a moment, so I can see how it feels?”

Pete instantly feels unsettled, his stomach a little queasy, and he feels slightly nervous too, but then it all disappears and he feels normal again, except for the buzzing running in the background of his body like trapped bees.

“I’m making the ill feeling you constantly experience a little better too, but I can’t stop the buzzing. Sorry.”

“Wow, no man, it’s totally fine, this is seriously awesome! Am I going to be this cool?” Pete turns to Clara. “You totally have magical healing powers, don’t you? You used to fix my knees when I’d scrape them, way back when I was like, 10, or some shit. And the other night! What creature would that be? You said creature, right? And you said Mikey has visions? Wow, is this like-”

“Wow, kid, breathe.” Clara shakes her head and folds her arms. “I’m not that cool. I’m a siren.” She sighs. “I can draw people in; ‘seduce’ them, I guess.” She wrinkles her nose up at the word _seduce_ and Pete takes her hand.

“Like Frank, I need something other than food to live, although I still need to eat like regular humans. I steal other people’s life supply. I can’t really describe how. I have to draw them in. I can sing, like the usual siren myths, but it’s kinda weird doing that in a bar or something, especially since I can only focus it on one person, so everyone else would just find it weird. But I can usually do stuff with my eyes, and make myself just generally appealing, I guess; I don’t know what I’m doing, I just do it. Then I get them alone and we have to… god I can never say this right,”

“She has sex with them, basically, or starts to, and then feeds. They have to be weak, relaxed and have their defences down for it to work.” Lindsey says.

“Yes.” Clara says weakly, looking mildly disgusted. The excited feeling in Pete’s stomach dissolves away; the underrunning current of _cool cool cool this is so awesome_ turns into a quiet _oh_. “I can kill them. I used to, before I learnt how to control it and only take a little bit. Back in the day they thought I was a witch and tried to burn me at the stake. Lindsey saved me, and that’s how we started helping other kids. She found them and I would heal them and anyone else they might have caused damage to. Now I can take enough to last three months. You’ve seen me go out every so often; coming back looking better after I’ve left looking like shit, cause I like to hold out as long as possible and then I start fading.”

”Fading.” He murmurs to himself, then says it louder. “Fading! That’s not fading. It’s death, sucking the life out of your body! You’re slowly killing yourself! You almost died that time! When I was twelve and you fainted and you wouldn’t go to the hospital even though you were pale and vomiting up blood!”

“I left it too long.” She whispers ashamedly. “I couldn’t find anywhere or anyone to leave you with. I wasn’t bringing someone back to the house again after the time I didn’t do it properly and he hit me in front of you.”

Pete remembers that. He remembers waking up to screaming in their second house, hiding in a room that didn’t feel like his, clutching that blue bear he’s got hidden in his cupboard now. He’d crept down the stairs and screamed when a guy had punched Clara in the face and run out of the house. She’d sat him in her lap on the stairs and whispered sorry, over and over, and Pete hadn’t understood why she was apologising. When he looked up from where she’d held him buried in her chest she’d had tears running down her face and a black eye and. It didn’t fade for two weeks and all the parents would stare and whisper when she dropped him off at school.

“Can you heal yourself? How does that work?”

“No, it doesn’t work on me.” Clara answers. Pete squeezes her hand. She squeezes back.

“You know, this is how I think of it,” Gerard interjects. “Think of her life supply as an energy bar, like in a game. She collects life from others in the form of feeding. It drains their life, making their bar lower. They can’t get it back, since they aren’t also sirens. So they end up with a shorter life span. She can expel her life supply on others in the form of healing. When she heals, her life supply declines and she needs to feed sooner. It depletes through everyday life also. Make sense?”

Pete nods as Lindsey picks up the big book up and places it in his lap carefully. It’s really just a giant binder, filled with pages of varying age, and he can see papers with Lindsey’s spidery script, and Clara’s stupid lowercase sentences. There’s a corner poking out with what looks like a really awesome drawing.

“Here,” Lindsey says, opening the book to a picture of a small girl with bright blue hair and star drawing on her hand. She pages through, past a drawing of scary looking creature with fangs and black eyes. Pete leans in closer to get a better look but Lindsey just flips past. “Some of these are kind of stylised, keep that in mind. Gerard is a lover of dark things, and he’s our resident artist... Okay, why the fuck is Frank next to the Isabelle, guys, alphabetical order, please. Can you stop taking pages out and shoving them back where you please?” Lindsey pulls out a few pages accompanied by her handwriting and a drawing of Frank, sitting cross-legged with his chin in his hand. His eyes sparkle brightly, and blood runs down his chin, dripping from the huge fangs protruding from his happy grin.

Frank points at it. “See? You just have to take them with a grain of salt.”

“Excuse me,” Gerard sniffs. “They are all completely accurate.”

“I don’t look like that when I feed!”

“That’s after you’ve fed.”

“I’m a very clean eater!”

“You sat like that when I was drawing you, I had to take creative license and add the blood somehow or it would just be a picture of you!”

“Gee, I’m a vampire, if it was just a picture of me you could just add some fangs or something, that would be fine for showing _a vampire_ , you don’t have to add the blood.”

“But I wanted to.” Gerard mutters.

Clara rolls her eyes. “He just wanted to use his new red marker.” She gets up and kneels in front of Pete, pointing to the page that is next to Frank. It’s a blonde girl with her back to them. Huge, feathery wings extend out from her shoulder blades. It’s labelled ‘seraph’ in Clara’s handwriting, and Lindsey’s scribbled over the ‘s’ to make it a capital. Underneath it is the name ‘Isabelle Dutton’ in tiny lettering. “Isabelle’s wings aren’t that big, and there’s these strange looking scars around them from when they first tore through and ripped her skin open. Poor thing.”

Gerard huffs and sits down in an armchair, obviously offended. Frank goes and pokes at his scowl until it twists upwards.

“Here. This is me. Absolutely ridiculous.”

Clara’s page is mostly filled with writing, unlike Isabelle’s, who had a giant picture and about two paragraphs. She looks pretty much like the Clara in front of him, in Pete’s opinion, although her hair is brown. It tumbles down over her shoulders in pretty curls so nicely it could be a hair commercial, and Pete’s pretty sure that’s her issue with the accuracy of the drawing, since she doesn’t have that much of the stuff. Her eyes are bright jade instead of her usual hazel, and she’s just sitting on a stool, looking bored, in pretty awesome leather jacket, knee high boots and dark red lipstick. Pete imagines all the other people around her, even though they aren’t drawn in the picture, and he thinks if he was there in that room she’d be the one he’d be looking at in a crowd, especially if he didn’t know her.

“That’s pretty much how you look to me.” Pete says. “Did your hair used to look like that, or…?”

“It used to be longer.” Lindsey tugs a piece of hot pink hair. Clara swats her away and flips through the book, clipping the vampire page back in on top of a person with their back to the viewer and surrounded by plants, labelled “Witch.”

Pete flips back through the book to the non-creature section and looks at the picture of Lindsey. She sits on a bench and hovering above her are weather predictions, projected like thoughts. She looks up at them with big eyes and holds her hands up, pointing at them as if explaining them to someone unseen.

Gerard huffs again. “Okay, some of them aren’t meant to be taken literally.” He admits. “She wouldn’t let me draw her with a crystal ball.”

“I don’t have a crystal ball, Gee.”

Gerard begins to reply when the front door slams. Pete curses himself for not paying attention.

It’s Mikey.


	7. Panic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY I"VE HAD EXAMS AND BEEN SUPER STRESSED AND KINDA FORGOT I HADN"T UPLOADED PLS FORGIVE ME

“It’s Mikey,” Frank says. Gerard’s fond, grumpy frown turns dangerous. He jumps up and storms down the hall. Pete hears another door open and close and figures they’re going down to the basement.

“Where the fuck have you been?”

Pete wonders if he and Frank are the only ones that can hear this. It’s muffled and soft, but he can hear it plain as day.

“I took a walk,” Mikey says shortly. Pete flips back to Clara’s page and skims it, looking for anything about supersonic hearing, but there’s nothing. Lindsey and Clara are talking quietly, Lindsey scribbling something in a notepad. Frank appears to be blatantly eavesdropping.

“We need to have a talk.” Gerard says.

Frank gets up and Lindsey’s hand shoots out to stop him. Frank rips her hand off his hoodie, pushing past her to the hall. Pete follows him, Clara right on his heels.

“No we don’t,” Mikey says.

“Yes we do,” Gerard hisses. “You need to talk to Pete. We told him about us, but not you, you know the rules. So you talk to him. About everything.”

“It won’t matter, Gerard.”

“Okay, well if you’re going to be an idiot about that, we can just talk about you leaving Frank home alone,” Frank makes a noise of annoyance as they step down the stairs.

“I made a mistake Gerard, let it go!” Mikey yells. “Besides that, none of this is your business, stop trying to control everything!”

A lone lamp lights the room, and it takes a while for him to locate the Way brothers amongst the mess, because where Gerard and Mikey are standing the light doesn’t quite reach properly.

“No!” Gerard yells back, if not a little shakily.

A couple of sheets are spread out on the floor and art supplies and scribbled on bits of paper litter them, canvases stacked against the wall and easels dotted around the room with half-finished paintings. Pete isn’t sure how to get through it, but he watches Frank just sludge through it, so Pete follows behind him.

Frank makes a noise of anguish when he reaches the brothers. Pete realises that Gerard is crying.

“Back off Mikey,” Frank growls, “He’s just looking out for you,”

“Fuck off Frank, since when are you part of us?”

Clara and Lindsey both gasp, and Frank punches Mikey in the face.

Pete moves from his frozen spot, shoving Frank into the wall and letting a snarl explode from his chest. He bares his teeth at Frank and Frank growls back at him, his fangs appearing. He shoves at Pete and Pete trips, falling back and taking Frank with him, his fingers digging into Frank’s arm. Frank yelps and hits him. It’s only hard enough for Pete to let go of Frank in shock. Frank wriggles himself off Pete and hisses, holding his arm.

Pete stares up at him, pressing a hand to his throbbing jaw. Frank takes his hand away from his arm and reveals puncture marks, going through the fabric of his hoodie and into his skin. Pete is certain if Frank could bleed the puncture marks would be red with blood and running down his arm in little rivers. He looks down at his hands to watch ragged claws retract back into his nails, and he hisses as they turn back into flat nails.

“For Christ sake, Mikey, can you go anywhere with him and not fucking turn everything into a shit show?” Clara says, kneeling next to Frank and healing the gouges in his arm.

Mikey shoves his hand through his hair and crouches. “Sorry, Frank.”

Frank looks up at Mikey. “Nah, it’s okay, man, but maybe next time you could make sure Pete knows you deserve it. Sorry for punching you, Pete.”

Pete blushes. “Frank, I wasn’t thinking, I’m sor-“

Franks flaps a hand at him and says “It’s fine. But I am not sorry, Mikey,”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t be. I didn’t mean it. Promise.” Mikey says.

Lindsey looks at Pete curiously. “Why do you protect Mikey, Pete?”

Pete blushes again and stares at a piece of thread coming out of his jeans. “I don’t know, like I said, I wasn’t thinking. It’s instinct, I guess.”

“But you don’t know him very well.” Gerard says.

Pete sneaks a look at Mikey, who is staring down at Clara’s shoes as she holds a hand up to his jaw and heals it.

“I feel like I do,” He admits. “I feel like I know you too, Gerard, but with Mikey it’s… well, it’s hard to explain.” He finishes weakly.

“Try,” Mikey whispers, pleading, his eyes suddenly on Pete.

Pete feels the expectant silence like a heavy weight on his chest. He knows everyone is staring at him, and but he only sees Mikey, like everyone around him is blurred out and he’s all that matters in the moment. Pete can’t explain it; it’s like the words are being knocked out of his chest with the way Mikey’s eyes are boring into him. Pete opens his mouth and makes a sound, the sound of starting a sentence, but he can’t complete it. Mikey’s eyes go a little watery and the way his mouth is set seems to go even harsher, and somehow this spurs Pete to suck in a huge breath and just fucking speak.

“It’s kind of, like, home? You know that feeling, when you get home from a long day or you finally crawl into your bed after sleeping in another? And it’s just a comfortable feeling. Like when I’m with Clara,” he looks over at her and she twists her fingers in the ends of his scarf that she’s still wearing, the edges of her lips quirking upwards. She nods at him to continue. “She feels like home even when we aren’t there, but you’re different, more like a house. Because I don’t love my house, because I haven’t got to know it yet; we haven’t been there long enough. But I trust it. That’s stupid, and I’m not making any sense.” He rushes, starting to babble, “It’s stupid to trust a house; how do you trust an inanimate object? But you do trust your house; you trust it’ll always be there and that when you get home your room will be there with the sheets the way you left them. You might not know that house but you trust it right away. That’s how I feel. I trust you but I don’t know you; but I do. I do know you.” He frowns. “Except I don’t.”

“You do. You know me, Pete.” Mikey says, and Pete hears Gerard exhale a long breath, and Clara sucks in on and holds it. “You know me better than you know anyone else here.”

Pete thinks _but I don’t, I know Clara like I know the back of my hand,_ but then another voice questions that, because Mikey says it without contradiction, so plainly, so easily, with so much infliction behind his voice, that Pete thinks it must be true.

“I barely know you,” is all he manages to choke out, staring back at Mikey, and it’s still as if he’s the only one there.

“Yes, you do.” Mikey breathes, like the louder the words are the more they’ll hurt when he says them. “Please, Pete, remember, you know me, you know me so well,” His voice catches on the last words and Mikey shoves at the skin under his eye angrily, wiping away the shining path the tear leaves.

“I… I feel like I do.” Pete admits. He’s vaguely aware of the way his jaw aches because everyone has frozen and Clara hasn’t healed it yet. 

“He doesn’t remember, Mikey.” Pete hears Lindsey say, and maybe she puts a hand on Mikey’s shoulder, but Pete’s eyes are starting to blur and the ache in his head gets worse as he searches for something, anything. He’s not sure why, but everything in him screams _remember,_ and it says it in Mikey’s broken voice and Pete wants to, he wants to make Mikey happy so bad he aches for it and he knows this will do it, but he’s not sure what he’s looking for and even if he was sure he doesn’t think he could find it.

He’s never wanted Patrick with him more in his life, because Patrick is smart, man, Patrick is a fucking _genius_ , and Patrick fixes things and he finds things. And he’d find this for Pete because he loves Pete and Pete loves him; fuck, Pete needs him so bad right now.

“He has to. He has to remember,” Mikey says, his voice slowly getting louder with every word. “What would be the fucking point to all of this bullshit if he didn’t?”

“Mikey, calm down, he said he feels like he knows you, maybe it’ll come back to him another time, or slowly.” Frank says hopefully.

Mikey looks angry and frustrated and sad all at once, with only an eyebrow raise and the slightest downturn of his mouth. Pete wonders if everyone can read his facial expressions this easily, because Mikey is the least animated person he’s ever met, but somehow he still knows exactly what it means when he wrinkles his nose or pulls the edge of his lip into his mouth.

“Don’t be mad.” Pete says hopelessly. “I’m trying, I really am. I don’t know what I’m remembering; what is it?”

“You died.” Mikey says, and he finally looks away, down to his filthy Converse. There’s a leaf stuck to one of the laces. Pete reaches out to remove it and then drops it back down as the words register. “You died in the eighteen hundreds.”

“Excuse me?” Pete squeaks, looking up at them, who are watching him warily. “I what?”

“Lindsey had a vision of you in 1865, and we went to help you awaken. You were meant to, awaken, I mean, but you never did. We’d become friends by that stage anyway, and we’d told you what we were because we thought you’d change soon enough. We had to leave, after a few years, and you turned eighteen and you still hadn’t awoken.”

“It’s unheard of.” Lindsey interjects. “Seventeen is the cut off. But I still had the feeling, and I’ve never been wrong about anything else.”

“You decided to leave with us,” Mikey says. “For many reasons. You thought it was so cool, all of our powers, and you and Clara were best friends and we were…” Mikey looks like he physically can’t finish.

Pete’s not an idiot.

“Were we together?” He asks, hushed, and he’s afraid of the answer, because Pete can’t stand the idea of all of this, it’s too awful.

Mikey doesn’t say anything, but he rubs at his cheek harshly again and Pete knows the answer.

Everyone is silent for a very long time. Pete is aware of everyone in the room now, watching him like he’s going to freak out, but he just feels sick.

“How?” He says, not sure quite what he’s asking but expecting an answer anyway.

“There was an accident with a charge and I couldn’t save you. You died.” Clara says. “And then, one day, in 2003, one hundred and fifty years later, Lindsey and I drove past this church and she almost ran off the road.”

Lindsey smiles weakly. “And I hadn’t told Clara, because I didn’t wanna freak her out, but I had the strongest foresight in my life, about you. It was complete vision, the only one I’ve ever had, of a younger you in a modern setting and you were still the same Pete. You were going to come back, somehow, and Clara was going to find you. And then I just had a feeling about that church, so we spoke to the priest, and told him we were runaways, and he let us use the church shelter they had for youths. Clara thought I was crazy, and then one day we were at Mass and Clara starting talking to your grandmother.”

“She invited me to dinner.” Clara says, and she’s grinning now, moving closer to Pete, nostalgia in her eyes. “And I wouldn’t usually say yes, but she was so sweet and the shelter food wasn’t that good. And so I went. And I was just sitting at the table when you barrelled in with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles backpack and mud all over your shoes. You knocked a vase over and I knocked a whole jug of water off the table and almost screamed. Jennifer did scream, because you were getting mud all over the carpet.” She smiles fondly.

“Then I called Lindsey, had a mild panic attack in the bathroom and a few weeks later we convinced the priest to convince Jennifer to let me stay at yours. I didn’t know how sick she was. I wasn’t ready to look after you; I just thought I’d just live there and watch you to make sure we didn’t lose you again.”

“Couldn’t you have healed her?” Pete asks, shakily.

“It was her time, Pete, I can’t stop death. She was too sick.

“Is that why you couldn’t save me?” And Pete can barely hear his voice; it’s somewhere in another corner; detached and small, and he’s up before Clara can shake her head, pushing up against the floor below him and stumbling.

“No, that’s not why.” Mikey says bitterly, and Clara jumps up and tries to grab Pete’s arm, but he shakes her off.

“I’m fine,” Pete says firmly. He turns to Gerard. “Stop it. Stop manipulating my emotions. I want to feel this.”

Pete’s shocked into silence for a second, because everything comes back at once; the pounding in his head, his jaw aching, the sick feeling in his stomach. The buzzing gets even worse; he scrapes his hands along his forearm, trying to claw the skin off. Everything is foggy; fuzzy. His vision swims. He wants to be sick; he almost is, and he coughs on the awful acidic taste as he swallows it back down.

“Pete, let Gerard do it, it helps.”

“No!” Pete yells, backing up towards the stairs, stumbling. “You’re all crazy. I’m not some guy from one hundred years ago, that’s bullshit, I’m just Pete. From now. I’m not special. I’m human.” He starts to cry. “This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real. _This isn’t real._ ” He repeats it over and over, and maybe if he says it firmly enough it won’t be.

“Don’t.” Mikey says, and it’s faraway and Pete doesn’t think he’s talking to him.

Pete squeezes his eyes shut and keeps saying it, swaying dangerously on the stairs. Hands grab onto him, pull him into their body, and Pete can tell it’s Mikey, because he smells so plainly of what Pete didn’t know he wanted in that moment, but realises when he smells it that he does. _Home._ Pete falls into him and buries his face into his chest and he doesn’t have the strength to move. His nose gets squashed and he can’t decide to breathe in or out, but Mikey just cradles him as he drops them gently to the floor, sitting against the stairs. Pete feels it digging into his back as he chokes out a sob. Mikey is whispering something but Pete can’t focus enough to know what he’s saying. Pete makes a wet patch of tears in the front of Mikey’s shirt but Mikey isn’t paying attention; he’s saying things louder and louder, faster and faster. His voice is getting hysterical.  Pete can’t breathe enough to tell him to calm down and suddenly Mikey is the most important thing there; so Pete takes a few big gulps and releases shaky breathes and tries to listen to what Mikey is saying; but it’s mostly nonsense. Pete manages to pull out the _no’s_ , and _it’s okay_ and _shush, Pete_ , but they’re mixed in with pleading _please be okay’s_ and _please come back to me_ and Pete’s choking on the air again, or maybe he’s choking on Mikey’s words.

“I swear I can make this better,” Mikey promises fervently. “Trust me, Pete. Pretend I’m a new house and you’re just learning me. You don’t know me yet but I’ll always be here, okay? Pretend that, please. Can you? Can you?”

“Yes, yes.” Pete says, in a rush. “I can try; I will try.”

Mikey kisses him on the forehead, softly, barely a brush, but he sighs like it’s all he’s ever wanted to do. Pete breathes out with him, and he thinks of last night and Mikey, pressing up against him and pointing at the stars, and how Pete had just thought he was a cute new kid he maybe might want to make out with a bit, and now Pete’s crying in his lap. He’s thinks this should make him start freaking out again, but he must be past that, because he just stifles a laugh and fists his hands in the front of Mikey’s shirt. He murmurs something that makes Mikey breathe out a chuckle and when he kisses him on the forehead again Pete thinks maybe that’s what he asked for. Pete falls asleep like that.


	8. Abandoned

He gets shaken awaken by Clara, who is sitting next to him on the bed. The first thing he notices is the buzzing, and how it’s just gently running in the background. It’s muted enough for Pete to sigh in relief. He’s in Lindsey’s room, and she’s yanking drawers open and shoving clothes into a bag, mumbling to herself.

“Are you still a size 10?” Lindsey says, holding up a ratty t-shirt.

“Yes,” Clara answers absently, then takes Pete’s hand. “Pete. I’m so, so sorry. Something is happening. Lindsey had a vision about Ray and we think he’s awakening, but he left town to visit his grandparents.”

“Are we all going?” Pete says, sitting up.

“No, just Lindsey, Gerard and I. Frank hasn’t fed in weeks; we’re going to stop and get blood for him on the way back, but it’ll be easier for him if he stays away from people. Mikey is going to stay with him, and I want you to stay here too. It’s just easier for us. We’ll be back tomorrow.”

Pete frowns. “You’re just going to leave me here?”

Clara hugs him. “I’m really sorry kid, but I promise I’ll be back tomorrow. I know this is a lot, but it’s all true. Stay here with Mikey if you want, you can sleep in Lindsey’s room, or go home. Go to school. It’s Thursday.” She supplies helpfully. “That’s not optional. You’ve missed a lot; I want you to go today.”

He doesn’t want her to go. He wants her here, but Pete just nods and when he says okay he thinks of how much Clara mentions Ray; too much for a friend.

“The Book is on the coffee table. Don’t leave the house with it, it stays here.” Lindsey says firmly. “Clara, we have to go. It happens at seven.”

“What happens?” Clara says, frustrated. “Try harder, Lindsey, how can we be prepared if you can’t tell me anything other than that?” She kisses Pete chastely on the cheek. “I’m so sorry to leave you like this. Trust Mikey and Frank, okay? Trust me with that. Especially Mikey.”

“He called you bad things,” Pete frowns stubbornly.

“I deserved it. Talk to him. And if you don’t go to school I’m going to beat your ass. Love you.” She ruffles his hair with a devilish grin and he pushes her off him with a pout.

They leave, and Pete can tell she’s showered while he slept, because she leaves an air of Lindsey’s honey hair products in her wake.

Pete doesn't change, but he rummages around in the bag she's left him and takes out a hoodie, the one with the two holes in the front pocket. He presses his palms to his stomach through the holes and leaves two cold, hand shaped patches on his belly.

He doesn't think anyone's up. The house is quiet; past the midnight stage of eeriness and just peaceful. The occasional sound of the house settling is heard, and there’s the faint thrum of crickets in the background. It's still dark outside and his phone tells him it's 2 in the morning. He's slept another day away.

Patrick's texted him 14 times, the last three bordering on creepy. The last one reads "I came to your house and you weren't there, pls don't say you moved."

Pete texts back a lie about a relative being sick, going to see them a few towns away, and forgetting his charger. He turns it back off. He doesn't want to talk to Patrick right now, or anyone that doesn’t know what’s happening to him. He feels funny, isolated, like he’s doesn’t fit with anyone. Patrick is not an option right now.

He could go home, but he doesn't think he could stand to go back to an empty house that smells like Clara right now. He walks down the hallway towards the stairs and stops next to the guest room. The door is half open and leaking Mikey's scent out into the hallway.

Pete stops and looks in. The room smells more like Mikey then Mikey does. Pete can't stop thinking how familiar the smell is, how comfortable it makes him. Mikey's curled up so tightly in the corner of the double bed that you could fit two more people in next to him, hands tucked up under his chin. He doesn’t look as lean and awkward when he sleeps, but rather his limbs are pulled up into him and he’s as small as possible, bundled up underneath a thick blanket. Pete can hear him breathing, soft and even, and his lips are parted. Pete watches him for too long, but he can't look away, feet frozen in the doorway, hands still pressed to his stomach through the holes. Mikey looks so soft and gentle, his hair fanning over his cheek messily in a way Pete knows he wouldn't let it if he were awake.

Pete startles himself when he has these thoughts. Like he knows Mikey, and well, that’s what everyone has been saying, but that’s a little hard to swallow.

It's probably in this moment that he accepts everything he’s just been told. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t scare the actual shit out of him, but he thinks of how he can tell what each one of those dead expressions mean, even though they all look the same. He thinks of how he’d shoved Gerard away from him for no good reason; that his body told him to protect him. How he wanted to kiss him from the moment they met, and that day in Lindsey's kitchen, how Mikey leaving had made Pete feel emptier. How Mikey's scent feels exactly like home.

Pete turns away from the door, because he's being really creepy right now, and starts down the steps. He'd thought everyone was asleep, but Frank is sitting in the living room, just staring out the window. The almost full moon is bathing his face in soft white light, and Pete feels loose and free as he watches it too. He feels a desperate yearning to go outside and lie underneath it; soak it all up. He pictures lights on a Christmas tree and thinks _fireflies in a black abyss._ And Pete realises he's not even sure if Frank _can_ sleep.

"Hi," Pete says carefully. Frank smiles and looks over at him. He points to the book, which is sitting on an end table.

"It's there, if that's what you're looking for."

Pete sits down next to Frank after he's retrieved the book. The air around Frank is cool and makes Pete shiver.

"So," he says, unsure if asking someone if they can sleep is a rude question. "Can you, um, ah…how do I word this?"

"Ask me anything," Frank says easily. "I don't mind."

"Can you sleep?"

"Yes," Frank answers. "I need complete darkness. We think it might be because of the coffin thing. Like, what's darker than a coffin, right? But anywhere dark is fine, that’s why I sleep in the basement. And once I'm asleep it's a little more difficult than a human to get me back up." Frank leans over and opens the book to his page. "It's all in here. I don't need to sleep for days though."

Pete runs his hand over the drawing of Frank, feeling the grooves and indents of the lines on his fingers.

"I don't turn into a bat. I have mild mind-erasure skills; that’s pretty useful. They work better after I’ve fed on you, because you’ll be weak and a little fuzzy on what’s happening anyway; like you’re drunk. Garlic doesn't bother me. I really can't see my reflection and I have no clue why," Frank says, as if ticking things off a list. "I actually can go out in the sun but it burns like a bitch, and if I'm out too long I'll literally just cook and at some point probably die. No one has ever tried to kill me with a stake, so that's a mystery, but once someone ripped my whole hand off and Clara just sewed it back on and it healed itself back together really fast. Gerard almost vomited; it was so cool. I took the stitches out and I was fine. I’m Frankenstein the vampire!” He wriggles his fingers as if to prove it. “I don't have any blood inside me, so I don't bleed of course. This isn't like Twilight; animal blood smells and tastes just as good as human, but human blood seems to sate my ‘thirst’ for longer. Most human blood actually tastes worse to me. I like cows best, which is good because we can just get it at the butchers, but I still feel weird about it because I was a vegetarian before I awakened. I think that’s why human blood tastes bad. I like non-carnivorous animals best.”

"And you have retractable fangs." Pete adds, and maybe it’s a little in awe and a little bit in fear. Frank laughs.

"Yep. At first they used to just come out when I was thirsty, but now I can control them. Took some time. Maybe you'll be able to do that with your claws."

Pete looks down at his hands. He’d forgotten about that. “Sorry about stabbing you with them, dude.”

“It’s cool,” Frank says. “Sorry about punching you.”

Pete realises Clara must’ve healed him, because his jaw is no longer swollen. Pete lets his fingers linger there for a moment before dropping them back down.

He doesn’t mean to find Mikey in the book. He starts at Frank’s page and flips back, and Pete is so overwhelmed by it all that he’s really just looking at the seriously awesome drawings and the names. He can read it just fine, even in the dark, and Pete is finding this night vision thing super awesome. He flips back to Clara’s page, and skims it, absently running his hand over the pretty script of s _iren._ It’s the only one Lindsey hasn’t capitalised. There isn’t much new there except he learns she can’t take life supply from other supernatural’s, because (of course, he thinks) she can’t steal from an immortals lifespan because it can’t be shortened.

“Oh,” Pete says, after he flips past the Seraph and opens it to a page with a drawing of Mikey, who standing even taller and thinner than usual, his mouth quirked in a small smirk. The place he’s standing in is divided up the middle, one side a dark, distorted graveyard that is made even creepier by the way Gerard has drawn in the light, with dark, harsh shadowing, and Pete runs his fingers over the giant full moon in the back, and for some reason thinks _a handful of stars._

The other side is a sunlit garden, bursting with a mass of wildflowers, butterflies and birds. A little sun hangs over Mikey’s shoulder. There’s a bluebird on his outstretched hand. He’s glowing and soft around the edges, like he’s not quite corporeal. Pete theorises that he could put his hand through his intangible form and it would come out warm and coated in shiny, amber dust.

“Oops.” Frank says, shifting nervously. “You probably shouldn’t look at that until you’ve spoken to him,” but he only makes an jerky, abortive move to close the book, pulling his lip ring into his mouth.

Pete doesn’t read the writing; it’s scrawled in tiny little lettering, like they needed to fit a lot of information. Pete can just picture Gerard handing them the huge, sprawling picture and scowling when Lindsey got annoyed with how much space it took up.

“Wow,” Pete says, and runs his hand over the blocky lettering at the top of the page: _Sandman_. Frank makes a move to get up.

“I’ll go and get him,”

“No!” Pete slams the book shut. “I mean, let him sleep. I didn’t mean to pry. It was an accident.”

“We just,” Frank looks down. “We like to let everyone tell their own story, that’s all.”

“I understand,” Pete says. “It’s okay.”

“Look at it all you want.” Says Mikey sleepily from behind Pete, and Pete almost leaps out of his chair, the book slipping from his lap. He and Frank both grab for it and together manage to stop it from hitting the floor, but Pete barely lands back on the couch. He clutches his heart dramatically and looks at Mikey witheringly.

“Christ, dude.”

“Sorry,” Mikey says, but Pete is pretty sure he’s not sorry at all. “Thought you knew when I was around?” He smirks and Pete blushes.

“I wasn’t paying attention.” He mumbles.

“Well,” Franks says, getting up and stretching exaggeratedly. “I’m exhausted. Goodnight.” Pete rolls his eyes. _Subtle_.

Pete listens to his footsteps on the basement stairs and it takes until they’ve gone quiet that Mikey sits next to him on the couch. Mikey takes the book off his lap and flips through it. Pete can feel his warmth, radiating off onto his body, and he supresses the urge to curl up next to him and leech it off him. He’s not even that cold, fuck. He just wants to touch him.

But Mikey is stiff; sitting a cautious few centimetres away from Pete. Pete twists around in his seat so he’s facing Mikey and tucks his feet up underneath him. Only half of Mikey’s face is lit by the moon coming in through the living room windows, and Pete is reminded of the picture of him in the Book, half in shadow and half in light.

“Mikey?”

Mikey looks up at him from where he’s paging through the book at a glacial pace. “Yes, Pete?”

He says it so carefully. Pete can feel his wariness; see it in the rigidness of his back, the set of his jaw. He reaches over and touches his knee, if only for a moment, before he draws his hand back. Mikey looks down at his knee, like he’s not quite sure the touch was real, and Pete follows his gaze. Mikey’s nails have been bitten down so far, past the quick, that they’re red, raw and a little bloody.

“You don’t bite your nails.” Pete blurts, forgetting his original question, and then he puts a hand over his mouth.

Mikey looks at him, eyes wide, and stammers, “You said you didn’t-“

“I don’t,” Pete says quickly. “I don’t remember. I’m sorry.” He adds, at the disappointment that washes fleetingly over Mikey’s face. “Sometimes I just…know things.” He points at Mikey’s hands, reaching out to grab them. “Like that you don’t usually bite your nails, or that- Jesus dude; why have you mangled your hands?” Pete runs a finger over one of the jagged nails.

“I’ve been stressed,” Mikey says quietly, and Pete wants to wrap him up in a blanket and bring him hot chocolate. Pete sucks in a breath, musters all his false bravado and courage, and tangles their fingers together.

Mikey looks down at their interlocked fingers. Pete can feel Mikey’s pulse in his fingers and his mirrors it; quick and nervous, like heavy running footsteps. Pete breathes carefully, trying to slow it down. Pete is being more careful then Pete ever has been. Pete usually rushes headfirst into things, like kissing Mikey on the cheek at the lake and stripping off in front of him. He does first and thinks later; hiding behind fake confidence so people don’t know how insecure he really is. But he knows now this is important to get right. He can’t just bulldoze into this and expect it to just work out.

Mikey looks scared. Pete is fucking terrified. He runs his thumb over Mikey’s gently and Mikey smiles at him; tiny and barely there, but it is there and it’s enough.

“Show me your page?” He says, and smiles back in what he hopes is an encouraging way and doesn’t reveal how petrified he is.

Mikey flips to his page quickly, and his voice is shaky when he begins to talk, but Pete keeps their palms pressed together.

“I’m a Sandman,” Mikey says. “I can send people to sleep. I did before when you were upset and crying. I have to touch you or be rather focused. But I can affect dreams. I can create them. I can just view your own original dreams. I can make you forget them after. I did that to you, too.” He confesses in a whisper.

“ _My_ dreams?” Pete says. “You made me forget them?”

“I viewed them once. I was curious, and to view the dream I have to insert myself into it. I watched, hidden, and didn’t affect them, but you were having really bad nightmares. You had a dream about this monster clawing your face off and I couldn’t watch, you were so scared, so I helped you. I killed it and you saw me. So I made you forget.   
“After that, I thought I would stop. People dream for many reasons; nightmares that strong are usually the body fighting the awakening. I didn’t want to mess with that, but I hated the idea of you dreaming those things. Sometimes when I sleep I visit others dreams unconsciously. That’s what I did with you.” Mikey starts to sound panicked, deliberately not looking at Pete. He’s gripping onto Pete’s hand like Pete’s going to let go. _Fuck that,_ Pete thinks. _I’m never letting go._ “You kept having scary dreams and dying and I couldn’t… then you’d start to remember me being there and look for me and it all got messy. And I’m not like Gerard, so I can’t get rid of fear, so you were still scared after-oh god, I’m so creepy.” He ducks his head.

“You’re not.” Pete assures him. He squeezes Mikey’s hand. “I mean it.” He chews on his lip. “Could you show me?”

“What?”

“Can you put me to sleep and make a dream for me? Can you wake people back up again?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I can.”

“Okay,” Pete says lightly, and he scrambles around on the couch, trying to lie down while still holding Mikey’s hand. After a few unsuccessful movements, an impatient eyebrow raise and a sarcastic _when you’re ready_ from Mikey, Pete’s got his head on Mikey’s leg and Pete’s switched their hands and clasped them on Pete’s chest. He squeezes his eyes shut and says “Go.”

Mikey laughs and mumbles something sarcastic, but Pete just flips him off. “What do you want to dream about?” Mikey asks, and Pete shakes his head.

“Surprise me.”

Pete can already feel sleep tugging at the edges of his subconscious, so it comes out mumbled, and then he feels Mikey’s fingertips brush against his forehead. “Alright,” Mikey whispers.

***

Pete stands in the sand, or rather in the waves, water rushing in over his toes. It’s not cold, because that’s not how dreams work, but he can hear the sound of moving water. The sky above him is clear and he can see all the stars, and there’s a sliver of a moon, like a clipped fingernail. _Glistening, rain splattered pebbles._

“We both always liked the beach at night better,” Mikey says from beside him, and he looks like the drawing, soft around the edges and glowing silver in the moonlight. “Is it the same now?”

“Yes.” Pete reaches out to touch Mikey, to see if he’s really there, tangible, and his hands don’t slip through him and come out coated in dust. Instead Pete’s hands stop around where Mikey appears to be, but he can’t feel much. The sensation is quite like holding cotton balls; so light he can’t feel the weight of anything, but it’s soft and fluffy under his palms. “Illuminated darkness is always more beautiful than bright sunlight.” He turns away from Mikey and steps back to sit in the sand. “I like the way the moon makes water look.”

“My grandmother used to tell this story of the sun; how it was selfish and vain.” Mikey says. “It stole all the light for itself so we can only see it and not the other stars. But it got greedy, and now it’s too bright for us to appreciate it either. That’s why I like the night; it’s when the moon chases the sun away and we can appreciate the other stars.”

Pete contemplates this, looking up at the fingernail, and hums.

“The moon makes me feel whole again,” He admits, and Mikey sits next to him. “You smell different in dreams; like cotton candy and gingerbread biscuits. You remind me of the moon, Mikey.”

Mikey laughs and the dream is fading, getting hazy. “Why? Does the moon smell like cotton candy and gingerbread too?”

Mikey’s a blurred mess now. The black is invading and swallowing the beach around them. Pete’s not sure Mikey hears his answer; Pete’s not sure he even says it out loud. “No. You make me feel whole too.”

The last thing Pete sees is stars, or maybe they are Mikey’s eyes, shining in the moonlight; and Pete tries to reach out for him; but everything is gone.

***

Pete blinks rapidly, trying to dissolve away the sleep. His hand is sweaty in Mikey’s. He doesn’t know how long he’s been sleeping, but it’s starting to get light outside. The room is bathed in orange dawn. Mikey is back to normal, not fuzzy and glowing, and Pete has to let himself get used to it, to clutch at his hand and feel the weight of it.

“How long was that?” He asks.

“Two hours. Even the shortest dreams can last a long while; time isn’t the same inside your head. I still haven’t quite mastered keeping time correctly. I get caught up in the little details of the dream.”

“Creative, rather than practical?”

“Exactly.”

“Why there? Did you make it up?” Pete lets go of Mikey’s hand and sits up. He feels his shirt riding up and his neck feels stiff. His hair is probably a mess.

“We used to go there. Well, we met there; you used to live near the beach, and you loved it. We moved away a little while later, but you missed it. You specifically used to make us take detours to beaches when we were travelling.”

“I sound like a nuisance.”

“You were a massive nuisance. “ Mikey says fondly, and rolls his eyes. “You discovered my private spot on the beach, brought your annoying friends there and spent the whole time bugging me with incessant chattering when all I wanted was quiet.”

“And you didn’t kill me?”

“I thought about it.” Mikey admits wryly. “You kept coming back too. You left your friends at home, but you’d come back every day and talk the whole time, despite my rude responses. I’m sure I was an awful conversationalist, but you just kept coming back.”

“You could’ve just stopped coming back to get rid of me,” Pete suggests.

“I thought of that, but I didn’t want to. At first it was pride. I wasn’t giving up my thinking spot to a general annoyance. But then you stopped being annoying and I started talking back and…”

“Please say I kissed you; all romantic and cute and we fell in love and it was beautiful.” Pete mock-swoons, clasping his hands under chin and making big eyes.

“Actually, I kissed you. And then, after a few seconds, you pulled away and hit me.”

“Oh, so I was an asshole back then, too?”

“It was the eighteen hundreds. Boys didn’t kiss each other. You freaked out, that was understandable. You thought you were straight. But I came back the next day with a black eye and you were still there like every other day.”

“And?”

Mikey really laughs, a fond, nostalgic laugh, his eyes crinkling up, and Pete’s never seen him laugh so big. He files it away so he can try and make Mikey replicate it later.

“You took my hands and told me very seriously that you were sorry. You said you’d thought about it all night and you’d decided that I was your favourite person in the whole world.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes.” Mikey huffs another laugh. “But I soon found out that the position of ‘Pete’s favourite person’ including a lot of the general activities a boyfriend does, so I was happy. You were a lot like Frank, in terms of how you joined us. When we were moving, I tried to leave you. I didn’t think I was worth moving away from your family. But you showed up at my house with a suitcase and got in the carriage and wouldn’t get out. I tried to tell you to go home. You claimed you wanted to get married and have three kids, and we couldn’t do that if we were apart.”

Pete thinks this person does sound absolutely like him.

“Lindsey laughed for like, an hour, I swear. And Gerard gave you this talk, you know, the “don’t hurt my brother” talk, but honestly, it was the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. He’s not scary. I think he was more scared of you. Clara had to step in and help him. You guys were like siblings back then too; she really loved you.”  Mikey’s eyes shine happily in the early morning sunlight. Pete stares at him, captivated.

“Did I make you happy?” Pete blurts. He can’t imagine someone loving him so much that it overrides how annoying he is. It seems impossible. He’s not even sure sometimes how he has friends.

“Of course, Pete. You are my favourite person in the whole world too.”

Pete has to bite his lip to stop the grin.


	9. Release

Pete’s theory is that Mikey is rather scared of Clara. He’s not sure if they’ve made up after their fight, but Mikey is listening to her. He makes Pete breakfast in the form of pancakes, since he says he can’t make anything else, and makes Pete go and take a shower and get ready for school. Pete tactfully doesn’t say anything about the fact that it’s starting to make itself clear that the only person here with any sort of cooking skill is Lindsey.

Pete sits under the spray of the hot water and shuts his eyes. He hasn’t bothered with cold water at all. It burns, and his skin is turning an angry, flushed red, but the buzzing seems to be softer at night. Now it’s coming back, and Pete’s using the heat as an alternate method to clawing his skin off to get some sort of release.

He can’t stop himself from jerking off in Lindsey’s shower, even though he feels disgusting after. This is his friend’s shower in his friend’s house and a guy he might have a teeny tiny – _shut up-_ crush on is making breakfast downstairs and Pete’s jerking off in his friend’s bathroom. His two hundred and seventy year old friend. Jesus.  Pete’s has no clue where the fuck his head is. It’s like it’s hovering somewhere in the corner in the room, exhausted and hanging on by a thread. He feels a little like he could sleep forever, even though that is all he’s done lately. Maybe curled up around Mikey under a load of blankets.

Since Pete is being a massive shithead already, he decides to make it worse. As he’s getting changed in Lindsey’s bedroom, he starts rummaging through her desk, discarding his shirt on the bed. He’s not sure if he’s going to find what he’s looking for, since Lindsey clearly has an organised storage system in place. Her bookshelves are organised perfectly. The basement has two filing cabinets in it. But Pete gives in to curiosity and rummages through her drawers because he’s an asshole.

Pete’s ignoring pretty much everything he finds that isn’t what he’s looking for, but there isn’t much in the first few drawers. Mostly stationary and a sketch of a regular looking blonde girl with red irises that is half filled with writing. Pete thinks maybe she’s working on filling it in. It’s not until he gets to the filing drawer at the bottom that he gets somewhere.  

It’s mostly bills. There’s a birth certificate that says a name he doesn’t recognise and a two driver’s licenses with that name and another fake one with pictures of Clara and Lindsey on them. There’s a bunch of fake passports too, and a certificate of emancipation for Lindsey and a photocopied version of Clara’s. He wonders who organises and forges all these documents and how the hell Clara managed to legally adopt an eleven year old as an emancipated minor, and how no one asks questions. Maybe they do. Maybe Clara is just an amazing liar. He suddenly gives her even more credit for getting him through school and managing to feed him. He doesn’t even want to think about all this. It’s hurting his head. He rushes past them, after making a mental note to ask them if the names they’ve told him are even their real names.

He finds it; what he’s looking for, right at the back. There’s a framed fading picture of Lindsey and Clara. Lindsey’s brown hair is pinned up in a way that looks really weird when Pete is so used to the dyed black pigtails. Clara stands next to her, their hands clasped, looking exactly the same apart from the long dress she’s wearing and the lighter makeup. When he opens the back he finds a note written on the back; what he guesses is the photographers name and then ‘The Brown sisters: Ann and Evelyn, 20th of June, 1914.’ They aren’t smiling, but Pete thinks they look happy. Lindsey’s eyes are shining.

The picture he finds of Mikey and Gerard is a little different. The back reads ‘The Williams brothers: James and Arthur, 3rd of July, 1914.’ Gerard looks stiff and exhausted, the bags under his eyes purple, like bruising. Mikey looks dead, his shirt rumpled and eyes empty. He looks like he isn’t really alive, like he’s just floating through life as an empty shell of a person. Gerard looks like trying to get Mikey there to take the picture and actually look respectable was like pushing a boulder up a hill all alone. Pete shoves that one back in the drawer as quickly as possible

He finds another photo, one of Frank and Mikey, dressed in catholic school uniforms, arms slung around each other. Frank is reaching up so far his arm barely stretches all the way over Mikey’s neck Their ties are pulled loose and their shirts are untucked, hair messy. And they’re both grinning; the type of grins where you just know they’re about to do something to make trouble. On the back it simply reads in unfamiliar handwriting: _He’s finally happy again._ And under it is _1996_ in Lindsey’s writing.

“Pete?”

“Fuck.” Pete drops the picture and looks up at Mikey sheepishly, not bothering to shut the drawer. He’s not even going to pretend he’s being a respectful member of society right now. Let alone a good friend.

Mikey just shakes his head at him with a tiny, Mikey-sized smile, and makes a gesture with his head. “Your pancakes are getting cold. And there’s a book of photos in the basement, I’ll get it after school. You didn’t have to raid through Lindsey’s shit.”

Pete blushes but doesn’t know how to respond, so he doesn’t. He puts the two framed ones from 1914 back, and behind him Mikey stoops to look at the one of him and Frank.

“Wow,” He says. “I probably haven’t seen this since it was taken. He awakened a few weeks later. Lindsey had warned us, but we definitely didn’t expect how bad it was. It was only me and Gerard too, we were so unprepared. Fuck,” He points to the tie around his neck in the picture. “Do you know how horribly stifling and boring Catholic school is? Luckily I actually don’t mind the little shit and it was worth it, making friends with him to help him, but-Jesus, c’mon.” Mikey notices the alarm clock and tucks the photo back into the drawer. Pete shuts the drawer hurriedly and grabs his shirt. “I tried to cook for you and everything.”

“Tried?”

“Yeah, they’re a bit burnt. Whatever, we have to get to school.”

“You are so scared of Clara.” Pete giggles, running past him and jumping down the stairs three at a time.

“Fucking oath I am.” Mikey grumbles. “And for good reason.”

***

Pete gets an armful of Patrick at the front steps, a mess of a woollen cardigan, Patrick’s squishy sides and a hat that pokes Pete in the eye. Pete knocks it off accidently and indulges himself in watching Patrick blush dark pink and fumble for it on the ground. Pete ruffles his hatless head and giggles when Patrick swears at him. They don’t stay long, because the bell has already rung and Patrick is only out there because Pete texted him and told him he was coming back today. Mikey hovers behind them and thankfully Patrick doesn’t ask any questions when Pete says Mikey picked him up because Clara is still away and he is apparently too much of a pussy to take the bus without her. Right.

Pete can’t focus in class at all. He’s pretty sure he fails a maths test that Clara’s annoyingly organised for him to take today even though it was last week. The buzzing is worse than ever, and he’s back to fidgeting like crazy and annoying the shit out of himself. His pounding head is back too, but thankfully it’s not too bad. He feels so weird. Like he’s now isolated from everyone around him after everything that’s happened. He badly wants to be with Mikey, mostly because he feels like Mikey is the exception. He wants to be with people who know what’s happening. Someone who isn’t living in ignorant bliss about the fact there are immortal teenagers with supernatural traits all over the world. The world? He needs to have a serious conversation with them all about everything, but Pete’s not sure he can fit any more information inside his head. He scribbles shitty pieces of lyrics into his English book to pretend he’s working, then scrawls all over them until it’s covered in angry red lines, and when Mikey finally finds him at his locker at lunch he’s ready to burst into tears.

“I’m going back home to check on Frank, I promised Gee, but I’ll be back, okay?”

“I’m coming,” Pete slams his locker shut and grabs onto the edge of Mikey’s leather jacket like if he holds on tight enough Mikey can’t protest.  

“No, Pete,” Mikey says firmly, pushing rather weakly at Pete’s fist on his jacket.

“Please,” he begs, bouncing on his toes. “I feel full of energy; it’s just this fucking buzzing. I can’t just sit still all lunch.”

Mikey starts to say what Pete thinks is a no until Pete rests his head on shoulder and gives him puppy dog eyes. “Pleaseeee.” He pokes him in the ribs. Mikey slaps his hands, but then he just huffs and walks away, but he doesn’t say anything when Pete runs to catch up to him and follows him out into the carpark.

***

Pete gets a juice box from Lindsey’s fridge before following Mikey down the stairs to the basement. Mikey is sitting on the bed next to a stirring Frank and punching him in the stomach not quite as gentle as he could be.

“Couldn’t you just wake him up - magically? Is that what we call it?” Pete asks.

“Yeah, that’s fine.” Mikey says absently, then wrinkles his nose ever so slightly. “This is just more fun,”

“Fuck you,” Frank groans, and throws his hand up and hits Mikey in the arm back. Mikey squeals.

“Dude, not fair,” Mikey says, rubbing his arm. “You have vampire strength,”

“Fuck you,” Frank repeats huskily, eyes still closed. “You’re just a delicate flower. It’s because you’re a wilting maiden from the 19th century.”

“Yeah, you know, I could get Pete to actually punch you hard enough for it to hurt,”

“I’m not getting involved.” Pete says diplomatically, holding his hands up.

“Aww,” Mikey says, and Frank grins widely and Pete spots a flash of fangs. Mikey pouts at Pete and does sad eyes.

“Okay, well maybe I could get involved.” Pete allows, and Frank just grins wider.

“Dude, your fangs are out,” Mikey nudges him. Frank does a sheepish face that makes him look like he’s blushing without the colouring. They slowly disappear back into his gums, and Pete tries very hard to stifle the shiver.

“Mikey?” Frank says hopefully. “Could you go get me some smokes?”

“Do you have money?”

“In your wallet.”

Mikey sighs heavily. He gets up and rummages in a bedside table.

“Gerard counted that before he left.” Frank warns from the bed, tucking his body up into a ball.  

“Clara left me a fifty.” Pete interjects.

“Nah. We’ll use that for pizza tonight. Frank can’t cook either.” Mikey takes a thin wad of notes and shoves them in his pocket. “Let’s go.”

“Fuck,” Pete says, Mikey already halfway up the stairs. “We’re all so useless without Lindsey.”

Frank nods seriously.

*******

“Let’s go to the lake,” Pete says, after Mikey’s bought two packets of Reds with a very well made fake I.D.

“I should get you back to school.”

“It reminds me of the beach you told me about, you know, the one where I annoyed you into falling in love with me? Maybe the lake is our new beach. Please?”

“Since when are you so romantic?” Mikey sniffs, and tries to tug Pete back down the street, back to Lindsey’s. Pete decides against that, since Mikey’s going to get him in his car and just take him back to school, so he walks behind the row of buildings where the gas station is. There’s an empty one at the end, where there used to be a DVD shop.

“Whatever, let’s have one of those smokes. So, what are you scared of, Mikeyway?”

Mikey sighs and leans against the wall. Pete takes it upon himself to fish out the cigarettes from his pocket, patting him down to find them.

“The dark.” He says resignedly, jumping a little under Pete’s hands as they smack him accidently-on-purpose on the butt.

“Nah,” Pete says. “Tell me something deep, like it’s twelve ‘o’ clock and we’re having one of those special, late night chats.”

Mikey looks at Pete, and Pete can tell he’s tossing up between pointing out the fact that it is daytime or being honest and answering the question seriously. He’s got that same terrified look in his eyes again. “I’m scared that…”

Pete nods gently. Mikey closes his eyes and begins talking in a rush.

“That you’re the same person as before. But I’m not anymore, not after you died. And it won’t work again, and I’ll have to watch you fall in love with someone else, because it seems like you like me enough to be friends, but I’m not who you fell in love with before, so this might not work the way it did last time, and-”

Mikey is really just talking shit, and Pete has to shut him up somehow and he’s been saving this, absolutely certain that he’s been waiting to do it for a reason, and this feels like the reason. Plus, he's been wanting to do it for what feels like forever. Maybe it has been. Maybe his soul has been hovering around for 130 years waiting for a body to occupy just so he can kiss Mikey Way. So he does.

Mikey makes a surprised noise against Pete's lips, but Pete ignores him and shoves his hands in Mikey's hair, deepening it. It's too fucking perfect; Pete wants it messy. He wants Mikey to look the way he makes Pete feel, chaotic and wild and never in more pieces but never more together all at once.

Pete kisses Mikey desperately, rutting up against him, their hipbones grinding together, and Mikey whimpers. Pete licks at his bottom lip and Mikey parts his mouth. All Pete can think is _finally_ and _yes_ and suddenly, after two weeks of hell and complete confusion and fucked up-ness, Pete knows exactly what he wants and what he can do about it. He breaks off and doesn't wait a second before kissing across Mikey’s jaw, because Pete isn't really the patient kind, especially when he's been waiting so long for this. “Fuck, Mikey,” he hisses as the bulge in Mikey’s pants presses up against his leg, and Pete pushes his leg up in between Mikey’s thighs.

Mikey melts underneath him, and he moans as he runs his hands up under Pete's shirt and Pete licks at the spot under his ear.

"Pete," he says, breathless, and he puts a hand on the back of his neck and holds him in place. Pete sucks hard on his collarbone. "Pete," he repeats, even less solid. "Pete, are you… _ngghh_ … sur-sure about this?"

"Fuck yes," Pete growls, kissing Mikey on the mouth again, darting his tongue in this time and licking inside. "I mean," he says, pulling away and looking down at the zipper of Mikey's ridiculously hot leather jacket. It’s caught in the fabric of Mikey’s t-shirt underneath and Pete makes a frustrated sound as he yanks at it. "You’re so stupid. Of course I want you. Okay, it's a little scary thinking about the fact that you've wanted me back since…”

“You died in 1880,” Mikey supplies helpfully, flailing his hands around the zipper uselessly.

“1880, and I'm not sure if I can be that person you want.” Pete looks up at Mikey quickly, through his lashes because Mikey is a lot taller than him, and bites his lip through a smirk. “But I'm not sure I care."

Pete finally gets the zipper undone and flings the jacket open. They might be outside and sure, the carpark is deserted and the only open store is the 7-11 three stores down, but Mikey is making some pretty loud, fucking _awesome_ noise. Pete still pushes up Mikey's shirt messily because god, he has to see some skin. _He has to._

Mikey's stomach is flat and god, those hipbones, the way they press through the skin tightly pulled over them. Pete instantly wants to press open mouth kisses to those raised bits, around his bellybutton, over his nipple, but Pete thinks that might be a little far considering where they are, so he just groans and runs a hand over Mikey's stomach, across the expanse of pale skin and over the little grooves. Pete can’t resist dipping and kissing at a scar, then he thinks fuck it and catches Mikey’s nipple in his teeth. Mikey lets out a tortured moan. Pete sighs into him, and he wants to stare at Mikey for days, learn every part of him so that when he closes his eyes and runs his hands over him he’ll know exactly what is coming next, what that bump is, how it got there. He wants to know what it’ll taste like and what sound he’ll make if Pete kisses it. He wants to make hickeys along his collarbone like a tattoo in another language that secretly says Pete’s name.

"You'll always be right, Pete," Mikey chokes out as Pete leans back in and bites on the dip in his shoulder.

"I'll try," Pete whispers, and he doesn't really mean for Mikey to hear him, but he's not mad when he does. Mikey reaches down and cups Pete's ass, kissing him fiercely and Pete huffs out a surprised gasp against Mikey’s lips. Mikey mumbles something against his lips that Pete thinks is “you will.”

"You smell so good." Pete says huskily, and he does. Up close Mikey smells even more like vanilla, and a hint of something, a mix of something like lemongrass but not quite, and another part that Pete can only describe as 'sex' and he wants it, all over him and his bed sheets, all through his room. He wants to be able to smell it even if Mikey isn't there, because Pete has fucked him so good he's absorbed into Pete and his space and drenched it with himself and the smell of him. Pete’s erection throbs painfully at this thought.

"God, Pete, we should go home," Mikey says, and Pete knows a bed would be great right now, but he can't wait, he can't stop his body from pressing itself up to Mikey now it's found out how fucking great it feels. Pete wants to touch Mikey everywhere and he wants to do it now. Pete manages to get his hand down his pants and Mikey makes the most beautiful, filthy sound, dropping his head back onto the wall behind him. It’s an awkward angle, but he makes do, slicking Mikey's cock up with the pre-come that's leaking at an impressive amount at the tip and moving his hand slickly up and down the length.

"Jesus," Mikey says, his mouth falling open and his hot breath fanning over Pete's cheek.

"I really wanna suck you off," Pete mutters, "but I probably shouldn’t, not here, but I want your cock in my mouth so bad, my hot tongue on your slit, your hips bucking into my mouth, I wanna taste you-"

Mikey lets out a choked whimper and puts his hands on Pete’s shoulders. Pete moves his hand faster and tries the best he can to set a rhythm. Mikey's noises are distracting him to no end, his own cock pressing so hard at his jeans he's scared they'll rip.

"Mikey, please say you'll let me, I want to suck you off so bad, promise me."

Mikey nods quickly, but Pete shakes his head. “Say it. Promise me.”

Mikey stutters out a yes as Pete licks a stripe up his neck and he cries out, shooting hot sticky come all over Pete's hand and into his boxers. Pete has barely stroked him through it, when Mikey  flips them around, pressing Pete's back against the wall and sinking to his knees. Pete hasn't even got the chance to think before his cock is in the wet, hot warmth of Mikey's mouth. Pete’s never been out reckless-ed before but Mikey's got his mouth wrapped around Pete's dick and he's moving up and down so fast Pete's going to finish in an embarrassing few seconds. It’s a little messy and stilted, because Mikey is still getting his breath back, but what he’s lost in rhythm he makes up for in greedy, fast movements, and Pete can't stop himself from thrusting into Mikey's mouth, tangling his fingers in his hair and running his mouth off.

"Oh god yes, motherfucking Christ, yes, there, fuck, fuck, oh my god, _Mikey_ … you are so-"

Mikey sinks down to the base and hums, swallowing around Pete's dick. Pete comes, throwing his head back and making a keening sound as Mikey swallows most of it. Pete can vaguely feel him licking the rest up and when he looks down, panting, Mikey is grinning up at Pete wickedly.

"I can't believe you just did that." Pete says, tucking himself back into his shorts as Mikey stands up. Mikey rests his head on Pete’s shoulder, breathing for a moment, and Pete thumbs at his cheek. Mikey just smiles and kisses him lazily, swiping his tongue across Pete’s lip before pulling away. Pete just stares at him for several seconds, maybe a little admiringly, and then suddenly his head begins to scream, fills with this harsh, stabbing pain that hits him right behind the eyes. Everything goes black for a second, and his legs buckle and he falls to the ground, the concrete below him scraping at his knees roughly. He thinks he’s bleeding, but everything is fuzzy, the black still hovering stubbornly in front of his vision. He can barely hear Mikey asking him what is wrong. He fists his fingers in Mikey’s shirt and cries out sharply.


	10. Attack

"Fuck," Pete hisses as a sharp pain hits him in the back of his neck. Mikey clutches his face and tilts Pete’s head to look at him, but it's like Pete's seeing him through a fog, sort of like the dream, except it’s blurring everything, not just Mikey.

"What, Pete, what?" Mikey says, rushed. All the post orgasmic bliss and happiness has dissolved from his face, and Pete is so mad that this is fucking with him when he's finally kissed Mikey, after that torture of waiting, and made Mikey happy.

"It's happening." He clutches his head, trying to squeeze away the excruciatingly pain. He doesn't know how he knows, he just does. It’s happening. He doesn't know what, but Mikey seems to get it too, and he hauls Pete up with difficultly, because Pete might be smaller than Mikey, but Mikey is a waif.

It's too hard. The decision to leave the car at Lindsey’s and walk here suddenly seems like the stupidest one he’s ever made. Pete can't make it that far. He keeps stopping, crying out in pain, clawing at his skin in agony, trying to rip it all off because then he'd be free. He's clutching Mikey's hand so hard he knows he's hurting him, but Mikey doesn't let go.

"Stop, Pete, okay. You've got to hold on, okay, I'm just going to call Frank."

“But it’s daylight.” Pete protests, but Mikey shushes him. He helps Pete sit on the side of the road and kneels in front of him, his hand on Pete's cheek as he presses two on his phone and makes soothing noises.

"Make me sleep." Pete begs, putting his head between his legs as his shoulders begin to ache. Something in his back shifts, and he bites back a scream. It comes out as a stilted whimper.

"I can't, Pete, your body is rejecting it. You'll wake right back up because the pain will shock you out of it - Frank. You need to come get us. In my car, don't be stupid, okay?"

He doesn't give him an address and Pete later thinks of how he could pinpoint where Mikey was from a mile away with just his scent, and Frank must be the same, but all he does now is moan again.

It's after his shoulder blades shift, moving slowly upwards before they snap, his bones cracking, that Pete does scream. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he hears Mikey saying something, but the pain muffles everything, the agony in his head like a thousand knives are stabbing him. He can't hear anything past feeling it.

He cries out as the bones in his body move, shifting and then moving out of place, pushing up at the skin underneath it. The agony is so great that makes Pete blind, the black creeping back out from the corners of his eyes and suffocating his vision as another bone pops out of place and he makes a noise from deep in his chest. Someone that smells of nothing picks him up, and when Pete fists his hands in the front of their shirt he works out it’s Frank, the faintest hint of that warm, enticing scent and Gerard’s smell woven into the cotton of his t-shirt. If Pete focuses hard enough, he can pick out washing powder and the smell of paint. When Frank puts him down it jolts his entire body and Pete curls up into himself as everything aches, another bone in his back snapping in half. He thinks he's lying in the back seat of the car, his head in Mikey's lap, because he can smell the pine and unwashed sheets and he opens his mouth and screams into the fabric of Mikey's jeans as a bone reattaches itself to another, knitting back together excruciatingly. This is why bones usually take months to heal; because it fucking hurts when it happens quickly. The reattaching is the worst, the feeling of them healing, slowing dragging back and slamming against each other, sewing themselves back together.

He barely feels the way Mikey is stroking down his sweat soaked hair, and he's making a wet patch in Mikey's clothes again because he can't stop the tears leaking out of his blind eyes as the bones in his arms begin to lengthen and crack. He’s getting spit all over his legs too, cause he’s too busy screaming to stop to swallow and Pete is barely choking back rusty, blood flavoured bile.

"It hurts." He manages to choke out. Mikey says something to Frank, and Pete can't hear the words, but he can hear the pleading in his voice.

By the time they get out to forest Pete's leg bones have snapped in half and grown outwards, tearing through skin and Pete can't even scream anymore, his throat is hoarse and burning, wet liquid he thinks must be blood dripping down his knees. He manages to get out of the car before he chokes up something he thought was vomit but tastes like blood and spit, and he falls over because his body is a new shape now and he doesn’t know how to work it. Pete feels something tug at him, something inside of him, and he’s too weak to resist. It feels strong, and it swallows the human in him and takes over his body, and everything turns red and the last thing Pete thinks before he changes completely is how scared he is.

***

Mikey can’t help but stare at Pete. He wants to touch him, help him stop hurting, but Pete’s body is wriggling wildly and morphing, and Mikey sees Pete’s tan body cover with creamy coloured fur and Pete whines, panting.

For a second all he thinks is how much Gee is going to love drawing this one, and then Wolf-Pete opens his eyes and looks right at Mikey, and Mikey watches fear drip away into something harder, more dangerous.

“Get in the car and go home, Mikey,” Frank commands, and the serious tone sounds odd in his voice, so out of place. Mikey doesn’t move; Mikey _can’t_ move.

“I can’t leave you both here alone.” He whispers, staring at Wolf-Pete. He picks himself up off the ground and shakes his whole body, the fur ruffling, and lets out a long howl.

“He might attack you, Mikey, go.”

“You wouldn’t let him.” Mikey says stubbornly; and he knows he’s being stupid, but he can’t just _leave_. The Wolf-Pete flickers his eyes to Frank, his hackles rising up.

“Jesus, Gerard is going to kill me. At least get in the car,” Frank allows, not moving from his crouch. The Wolf-Pete bends down on his front paws, bares his teeth and snarls. Mikey’s heard Pete snarl like an animal before, but not like this. Not the way it’s ripping from deep down in his body, sending vibrations through the ground and up Mikey’s spine. He’s never looked at Mikey like he wants to rip his throat out either.

Mikey listens to Frank this time, stumbling back and getting into the car, locking all the doors. He rolls down the window an inch and watches them, curling up inside his leather jacket as if it could protect him.

He’s big, bigger than Mikey would expect for someone of Pete’s height, but he’s not any bigger than a large wolf. He’s pulling back his lips to show long, pointy teeth and walking towards Frank. Mikey hears Frank hiss. He can imagine the fangs appearing and it makes him shiver, because of that one time Frank slipped and attacked someone in front of them all. Mikey saw them sink into the flesh of their neck before he’d leaned down and made a soft slurping noise. Mikey remembers him looking up at Mikey like he was next, before he came back to himself, and Mikey has never been able to forget that, no matter how hard he tries.

Wolf-Pete launches himself at Frank and they both go down. It isn’t like last time, it’s different; this isn’t playing. Wolf-Pete is snapping at Frank, and Mikey can hear Frank hissing back at him, and Mikey’s vision blurs. He presses fists to his eyes to try and stop the tears, but it doesn’t work. He rests his head on his knees and wraps his arms around himself, sniffing. It’s dark in the car but Mikey can see them outside perfectly.

Of course; it’s a full moon. Frank’s taken them to his spot where he runs. Mikey wants to turn the radio on, drown out the noises of Frank and Wolf-Pete fighting, but he can’t move; he’s so scared. He sniffs and tries to sink into the corner of the seat, shutting his eyes and praying to someone, anyone, that it stops.

“Please,” He whispers, rocking a little. Maybe if he says it aloud. “Pete, I love you so much.” He murmurs. “Stop trying to kill my best friend. _Please_.”

It goes on for hours; hisses and growls and snarls and loud, dull bangs. Mikey does manage to reach out a shaky hand and turn the stereo on, finally, and turns up Frank’s Misfits CD so loud he can feel it vibrating the car. He cries listening to that with the occasional loud bark filtering through the heavy drums, and every time Mikey jumps. He tries to think about happy things; this afternoon, and Pete kissing him, but that just leads on to Pete falling to the ground and Mikey’s going to have nightmares about the way his bones had moved under his skin and torn through the skin on his legs. It was worse than when Isabelle’s wings came through. He can’t stop hearing Pete saying “it hurts” and the way he’d screamed into Mikey’s jeans and sweated so badly he’d soaked through his shirt. Mikey wipes his nose on his sleeve and shuts his eyes, trying to see if he can find Gerard and go into his dreams, but either he’s too far away or he’s just not sleeping. Mikey has never wanted to be somewhere else more in his entire life, but he doesn’t make a move to turn the keys. He just waits for Wolf-Pete to become normal Pete again.

Frank’s Misfit’s CD ended ten minutes ago, and Mikey can’t stand to listen to it a seventh time. The radio aerial is broken, so he just listens to all the sounds of the fighting and hides his face in his hands, desperately trying to stop crying. 

It ends with a yelp. It’s broken and pained, and Mikey finally looks, sees Frank take his teeth out of Wolf-Pete’s scruff and throw him back against a tree. Wolf-Pete whines and picks himself back off the ground limply. Mikey hates when Frank crouches like that.

Frank hisses again, louder than all the other times. Wolf-Pete makes one more weak attempt at snarling back at him, then gives Frank one last look and slinks away, his tail between his legs. He drops down against a tree, and Mikey watches him. Wolf-Pete’s eyes fall closed.

Frank knocks at the window and scares Mikey half to death. He reaches over and unlocks the door, and Frank climbs in.

“Sorry.” He says. “Is he sleeping? Can you tell when he’s like this?”

Mikey hurriedly wipes at his eyes and nods. “Yeah, he’s sleeping. I think you finally wore him out.”

Frank runs a ragged hand over his face, and then reaches into the back and grabs a blanket. “You look like shit man.” He says.

“Fuck off.” Mikey says back without bite. “You can talk.” 

Mikey’s pretty sure Frank looks worse. He can’t see himself, but Frank’s got teeth marks on his shoulder and in his side, and claw marks all over his chest. He’d be bleeding if he had blood, but they’re just thick, fleshy indents now, beginning to heal back at vampire speed. His hair is a mess, and he looks properly tired for the first time in months.

“So what, he just changes back when it’s morning?”

“I think so.” Frank says. “Fuck man. That was… scary. It was like he was hysterical. I think it was making him wild. I don’t think he knew what he was doing, Mikey.”

Mikey leans across the seat and silently hugs Frank. He tells himself that he’s doing it for Frank, but he’s so relieved when Frank clutches him back tightly that deep down he knows he’s doing it for both of them. 

“I was so scared.” Mikey admits into Frank’s shoulder, and Frank rubs his back slowly.

“I know,” is all he replies, and Mikey wonders if he could smell it.

“Thank you, Frankie.”

***

The moon’s too bright for Frank to sleep, but he's got his eyes closed and the blanket from the back wrapped around him. Mikey made him drink from his wrist about a half hour ago, and he still feels a little fuzzy from it. Frank looks better though, less like he’s about to keel over, and Mikey wishes they could find a place around here that can provide him with a steady supply of blood for him, because the place they get it from now when the town butcher is out is four hours away and Gerard and Lindsey have been taking turns, but, well, it's blood. It only keeps well for so long, and there's only so much they can bring back in the boot of a Mazda.

Mikey wants to sleep. His eyes keep drooping closed and he knows that he should, because Frank could handle it if Wolf-Pete wakes back up, but every time Mikey is about to succumb to sleep completely something horrific from the day comes back; the crack of Pete's bones snapping, the awful sound of tearing flesh, his guttural snarls. Mikey's got a loop of nightmarish images and sounds playing in his head and he hates that his powers don't work on himself. 

Mikey knows the exact moment Wolf-Pete wakes up; Mikey's listening to him dream, even if he's only tuning in occasionally because Wolf-Pete is dreaming scarier things than Mikey. Mikey can't affect him as easily when he's a wolf and especially not from this far away or not when Mikey is this tired. But he feels Wolf-Pete wake up just as a dusty pink dawn is starting to leak through the trees. Mikey hears him whine and he gets out of the car. Frank hands him the blanket, staying in the backseat because Mikey makes him; he doesn't want the sun burning him even though it’s not up yet, and by the time he's reached Wolf-Pete he's no longer Wolf-Pete, he's just Pete. Pete, who looks tiny against the tree trunk he's leaning against. Pete, who’s naked and shaking in the cold Illinois autumn. Pete, who looks like if Mikey touches him he’ll shatter into a million pieces.

"Mikey," he whispers, voice husky and hoarse. He tries to cover himself up, the tips of his ears tingeing red, and Mikey takes off his jacket and waits for Pete to put it on.

"I’m here." Mikey murmurs back, and he wraps the blanket around Pete and hugs him, gently, because Pete hisses in pain with every move he makes. Mikey kisses Pete on the cheek and lets out a shaky breathe. Pete tilts his face so he can kiss him on the mouth. It's hard and it's messy. Their noses bump and there's a moment of clashing teeth, but Pete just breaks off, rests his head against Mikey's forehead and pants heavily.

"I'm so glad you're okay, I was so worried," Mikey mumbles desperately against Pete's lips, and Pete dips his head and begins to cry, shaking violently against Mikey's chest.

"Pete, no, it's okay now," Mikey holds him and presses fervent kisses to his hair, and he'd probably cry too if he hadn't just spent the entire night doing just that.

"I wanted to kill you." Pete rasps frantically. "Frank was stopping me, but I didn't want him. He's not alive, he smells of nothing. But you; I wanted to tear you apart and eat you alive. I’m sorry Mikey, I’m so sorry-" His voice hitches, and he’s fisting his hands in Mikey’s shirt.

"But you didn't. It’s okay." Mikey holds Pete even closer, his breathes shaky.

"I could've. I could smell you crying." Pete says, through his own tears. There’s another apology laced in there somewhere, hidden between the pauses and inside the words.

"I was scared," Mikey admits. "Everyone is safe; it’s okay."

"It is now," Pete says, croaky, and kisses him hotly, his wet cheeks pressing against Mikey's and his bottom lip trembling.

And Mikey can't help it. "I love you," he breathes, as soft as possible, but he thinks Pete hears him because he kisses him again. It's just as messy and awkward as the last and Mikey loves him, he loves him so much it’s hurting his head and burning his chest and Pete is crying harder, tangling his fingers in Mikey's hair, hissing as he lifts his arms. He wraps his legs around Mikey and presses to him as close as possible and Mikey presses quick, fierce kisses all over his face as soon as Pete pulls away because, god dammit, he loves Pete so much.

"I'm so sorry," He spills out, putting hands all over Pete and clutching at him. “I’m sorry you had to be put through that.”

"This isn't your fault, Mikey," Pete says firmly, and it isn’t, Mikey knows that.

"I know," He sighs heavily. "I'm still sorry that this is what you had to be."

Pete wipes his eyes on the blanket. "Frank shouldn't be out in the sun, huh?"

"No," Mikey says. "Let’s go."

He helps Pete stand and wishes for the millionth time that he was as strong as Frank and not a stupid Sandman with no way of helping Pete at all. He guides Pete to the car slowly, and he even lets Frank drive them home, because he can't leave Pete in the backseat alone. Pete curls up by his side and holds Mikey's hand gently the whole way home, and he doesn't say anything about the way it's coming up in bruises because Pete was squeezing it so hard yesterday.

When they get home to Lindsey's Mikey goes to find Pete some clothes as Frank goes down to the basement to sleep, and he comes back to the guest room to find Pete with the blanket wrapped around his waist, shirtless. He's got his body turned so he can look at his back in the mirror, and Mikey barely stifles the gasp at the thick, pink scars running down his back from where his bones tore away the flesh. Pete catches Mikey's eye in the mirror, and bites his lip. He looks embarrassed.

Mikey puts the clothes on the bed. "Do they hurt?"

"No. Nothing on the outside hurts too much, just occasional stinging and this hurts a fucking lot," he points to his lower neck where Frank had bit him without drawing blood, and there's two puncture marks with dark purple bruising around them. "It's my bones that are aching. I think they deserve to feel like shit, if they’re going to fuck around like that. Everything seems to be healing fast.” Pete grimaces. “I’m not sure if these-” he gestures to his back, “are going to go away, though.”

Mikey steps up behind him, Pete still watching him in the mirror, and presses his lips to the top of the leftmost scar running down his shoulder blade. Pete shuts his eyes and Mikey moves up, kissing along his shoulder and up his neck to behind ear. Pete hisses quietly when Mikey licks there, and opens his eyes. He turns Pete around, slowly, and tangles their fingers together so both their palms are pressed together.

"You," he says firmly, so Pete will believe it. "Are beautiful."

Pete's breathing hitches. His eyes flutter closed again. "Tell me you love me again." He whispers, so quietly Mikey barely hears it.

"Fuck, I love you so much I don't know what to do with myself." Mikey answers huskily, and Pete sighs. Mikey kisses his forehead. "Doesn't hearing me say it freak you out, though?"

Pete shakes his head. "It's...nice. And I mean nice, in like, a good way. Not nice nice but _nice nice_ , you know?" Pete mumbles off at the end, and Mikey can tell he's tired, feels the sleep at the edges of his conscious, pushing its way in. Mikey pushes back at the bad dreams it's bringing, but lets the sleep stay. "It makes me feel safe. Warm. I like you a lot, Mikeyway." He adds.

Mikey feels his stomach get warm and hands him the clothes, turning around to let him change. "Do you want to sleep in here? I could stay in the basement if you want to be alone."

"Don't be stupid." Pete says. "Fifteen hours ago you had my dick in your mouth and you just told me you love me and now you want to sleep in different beds?"

Mikey blushes. "I was just making sure."

Pete rolls his eyes and tugs him into the bed gently. They don't touch; Mikey doesn't want to make anything else hurt, but they lie facing each other and their hands brush together on the sheets.  Mikey watches him breathe in deeply, sighing happily.

"It smells of you, Mikey." He says, moving forward and burying his nose into Mikey's shoulder.

"I don't change the sheets a lot," Mikey admits. Lindsey is a firm believer in people doing their own chores, and Mikey’s capabilities with a washing machine are second to none. Gerard does it for him, but Gerard is a firm believer in waiting until things smell worse than corpses before you exert the required effort to clean them. Mikey thinks he really should learn how to use the washing machine. Mikey needs to learn how to do a lot of things. A one hundred and eighty year old without the basic skills to live is a bit more than a little sad.

“I like you a whole lot, Mikeyway.” Pete says again, lazily, his eyes closed. “And you should never ever change the sheets," Pete suggests sleepily. Mikey laughs gently.

Mikey feels every little part of Pete falling asleep. He tunes himself in all the way, feeling the way his limbs relax one by one, his breathing even. He feels Pete's consciousness slowly ebb away, and Mikey pushes away the bad dreams for him. He concentrates as he falls asleep, so he can share Pete's dreams. Pete dreams of gardens and spring, and he’s happy when Mikey is there with him. Mikey is happy too.

***

Pete is jolted awake to muffled yelling. The bed beside him is empty, but Mikey’s side is still warm. Pete presses his hand to his side of the mattress and searches through all the other strong scents to find the hint of vanilla.

“You didn’t see him!” He hears Mikey yell, and Pete gets up. All the things he’s been feeling over the last week is gone; the buzzing, the pounding in his head, the twitchy feeling. He doesn’t want to claw his skin off. He’s just aching everywhere and he thinks he could probably eat a cow if he wasn’t a vegetarian. He takes a second to close his eyes and just _breathe._

“Fuck you, Mikey, we tried to get home! Now, please, Frank, can you come and help me with Ray?” Gerard asks. Pete takes the stairs slowly because that’s the only speed he’s got right now. Everyone’s home; he can smell them all.

“No.” Frank says. Pete has to stop for a moment at that, because he’s never heard Frank say anything in that tone to Gerard.

“Clara, sit down.” Lindsey all but growls, and Pete can picture her thunderous face before he rounds the corner and sees it for himself.

“Pete,” Clara says weakly, and she pauses halfway between sitting and standing and almost falls over. Lindsey rushes to right her.

“You haven’t fed.” He realises, and looks to Lindsey and Gerard in turn. Frank hovers next to Mikey, arms crossed, and he looks more exhausted than Pete feels. “Why hasn’t she fed, why is she weak, Clara, are you being stupid again?”

Everyone starts talking at once.

“I’m fine, I just need-”

“Clara we have to go back out so you ca-”

“We have to get Ray out of the car-”

“Frank can you please help-”

Mikey scoffs and cuts them all off. “You didn’t even stop to get the blood, did you?” He says, raising an eyebrow at Gerard. Pete reaches out and grabs his hand.

Gerard goes white.

“Well, he drank from me last night anyway.”

Pete sucks in a breath. Mikey squeezes his fingers, and Pete can hear the promise of _we’ll talk about it later_ in the gesture.

“Mikey!” Gerard exclaims. “That’s against the rules!”

“Oh, no, fuck your rules. You won’t believe the night I’ve just had.” Frank says dangerously low, and Pete’s reminded of the look he had given him last night, but the memory is fuzzy and tinged red. He swallows dryly. Everyone goes dead silent and stares at Frank. “I just spent the whole night stopping Pete from tearing Mikey’s throat out and you wanted us to follow the rules? Sorry, are you going to give me a lecture on how I haven’t even started making notes on fucking _crazed werewolves_ , because you know, it’s been over five hours since it happened, and the ‘rule’ is you do it while it’s still fresh in your mind.”

“Don’t you dare,” Mikey hisses, “He was sleeping because he got burnt yesterday because there was no one else here to help Pete when he collapsed.”

“We had to help Ray, Mikey, Frank, we’re here now and we’re sorry-” Lindsey says.

“Fuck you; you didn’t need to all go!” Frank yells, and Pete swears it shakes the whole house. “We’ve been waiting for Pete to awaken for weeks and then you suddenly need all three of you to go help Ray? You three have been doing this for decades! Fuck, I’ve only been helping you for five years! Mikey had to sit in the car because the stubborn fucker wouldn’t leave and he had to watch me throw Pete against a fucking tree!”

Pete winces. Mikey squeezes his hand again and Pete repeats _it’s fine it’s fine it’s fine_ over and over because he’s starting to really hate himself.

“Not that this is Pete’s fault. This is your fault,” Frank says bitterly, and Pete feels the way they are divided, the three of them on one side of the room and Mikey, Frank and Pete on the other. “I’m going back to sleep. Get Ray out of the car yourself.”

It’s another one of those moments; when everything happens in slow motion but all at once. Clara pushes herself up off the couch and tries to stop Frank. Pete is horribly reminded of when he was twelve and she fainted as she trips and falls, body crumpling awfully on the ground, pasty white skin swimming in Gerard’s peacoat and fuck, she’s still wearing Pete’s scarf. Everyone rushes for her, even Frank, but Pete gets there first and he feels the now familiar ripple of moving bone under skin and his teeth lengthening. The wolf tries tugs the human him back, and the two fight, battling for dominance over Pete’s body, and he snarls at all of them.

Clara makes a weak noise, what could almost be a scared laugh, and it brings Pete back to himself. He shoves the wolf back and feels his eyes go rounder and the claws recede. He shuts his eyes to calm his breathing and swears under his breath.

“Holy shit,” Gerard says. Everyone besides Mikey stares at Pete in shock.

“Well, I guess it’s not just on the full moon then,” Mikey intones, arms crossed.

Pete helps Clara sit up and she hugs him, tighter then what Pete thinks is possible with how weak she is right now. “I’m so, so sorry,” She whispers. “I’m sorry I was gone, I love you so much, I would never have left if-”

“Shutup,” He says, and he clings on harder.

“Alright,” Lindsey says, through gritted teeth. “We can have a huge fight about this later. Clara and I are going to go in the pickup truck and we’ll be back in an hour or so. Ray’s… body is in the Mazda. I don’t care how the fuck you do it, but I want him out of there and in the house when we get back, and she,” Lindsey points at Clara, “Will tear you all into pieces if he isn’t.”

“Body?” Pete says, and he feels his face draining of colour. “He died?”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Frank sighs.


	11. Ray

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry about this mess of uploading. Seriously, school sucks. But I love you all for sticking with me, thank you all so much. Last chapter! (there is an epilogue)

When Gerard opens the boot of the car, something bubbles up in the back of Pete’s throat. It’s either vomit or a scream, Pete’s not sure, but he manages to swallow it back down.

“Oh.” Is all Mikey says.

Ray’s body is pale, like…deathly pale, and of course it is, because Ray is dead. His mouth is parted slightly a little, his limbs are bloody and the skin around his eyes, _his open eyes_ , is purple.

“You guys could at least close my eyes, Jesus.”

Pete does scream then, stumbling back away from Ray and knocking into Mikey, who barely manages to right himself, let alone Pete. Pete falls onto his ass and tries to catch his breath as he looks up at Ray, who’s hovering next to the spot where Pete was standing, before Ray had appeared next to him and… himself. There’s a slightly transparent Ray hovering next to a dead Ray.

“Right, so, um,” Gerard says, as Ray throws up his hands and falls to his knees, hugging Pete tight. Ray feels awfully strange; cold and almost slippery; like when you shake a bottle of water and you can feel the cool liquid moving underneath the surface.

“You can see me too!” Ray all but squeals.

“What. The. Fuck!” Pete exclaims, still clutching his hammering heart.

“We’re not sure.” Gerard starts, and he looks a little lost. “Evidently, no one can see him except for me, you and Clara. Lindsey is rather pissed about the fact she was the only one, I'm sure she’ll be happy to know it’s not just her.”

“Wait, what?” Frank says, and he and Mikey are darting their eyes all over the place, searching for the owner of Ray’s voice. Ray helps Pete up off the ground.

“Ray died but he came back as what we are assuming is a ghost.” Gerard says. “He’s right there.” He points to Ray. “And Lindsey couldn’t see him, and obviously neither can you guys. Nor could any humans at the scene.”

“I can hear him?” Mikey says, and reaches out to steady Pete, who is feeling dizzy and swaying a little on his feet.

“The scene?” Pete manages to squeak, and Ray touches his wild hair, petting it down a little.

“I can hear him as well. So, how did he die?” Frank asks.

“Guys, not the time, we-” Gerard interjects.

“Well, he looks kinda banged up,” Pete says, pointing to the dead Ray’s bloody body. The alive Ray – is he alive? Ghost Ray? Pete’s going to go with alive Ray – doesn’t have any injuries.

“Guys.” Gerard flaps his hands.

“Wait, so you stole his body?” Mikey says incredulously. “Why did you shove him in the boot, he’s tall, he barely fits, look at his legs!”

“ _Guys._ ”

“Someone might have seen a dead body in the backseat, Mikes,” Frank placates, putting his hand on Mikey’s shoulder.

“Yeah, and he’s dead, he can’t feel it,” Pete adds. Ray huffs and crosses his arms, muttering _it’s the thought that counts_. 

“GUYS!” Gerard yells. Everyone starts, turning to look at him, except for Ray, who’s just looking at his body, still petting down his hair. “We are standing outside of Lindsey’s house with the boot open and anyone could see _the dead body we have inside the boot_ , so can we get it inside, please?”

“Oh god,” Mikey says, dropping his hand to his stomach. “We can’t take that inside.”

Ray huffs, mildly offendly. Pete pats him on the shoulder gently.

Frank shakes his head. “Ugh, yeah. What about when he starts decomposing?”

“Ew,” Pete wrinkles his nose.

Gerard sighs heavily.

*

They get the body wrapped up into what Pete thinks is a rather suspicious, dead body shaped sheet. Frank manages to lift Ray’s body just fine, but Ray is a hell of a lot taller than Frank and Frank struggles a bit with not tipping over and landing with a dead body on top of him.

Pete isn’t as strong as Frank in human form, but he is stronger than an average human. Or maybe just stronger than the Way’s, but that hardly seems surprising, considering Mikey’s likeness to a stick and Gerard’s unimposing body structure.

Pete doesn’t say anything about how he’s holding a dead body, how the skin is cold and squishes under his fingertips. He holds onto Ray’s ankles and supports his calves and Ray is thanking him profusely for not making Frank drag him. “Dude, it’s fine,” Pete says to him, and it’s really not, because he’s holding a stiff, dead body and he feels like he’s going to vomit. But he feels like Ray is in a worse position here and Pete tells himself he is taking one for the team.

“So,” Pete says, after they’ve placed Ray’s body in a corner in the basement. “Do you guys deal with dead bodies a lot, or what?”

Gerard rubs the back of his neck. Ray hovers next to him uncertainly, his feet barely an inch off the ground. “Well, we’ve never stolen a body from a crime scene before. Wait, are car accident’s a crime scene?”

“So it was a car accident?” Pete says, and Gerard nods.

“Why couldn’t you just bring the ghost Ray home and leave the body?” Mikey asks.

“He started fading the further away he got, and then would just teleport back to where it was.” Gerard replies.

“Okay, wait, so are we on the run from the police or some shit right now?” Mikey asks, looking mildly annoyed. “Cause last time that wasn’t so fun.”

“Last time?” Ray squeaks.

“Oh, don’t worry, you’ll never be bored with these guys.” Pete says, taking Mikey’s hand and grinning.

“We explained it to him, mostly.” Gerard interjects. “He took it better than you. Maybe because he’s a ghost, so clearly something is up and it’s not as if he’s got to just blindly believe what we say, or maybe it’s because he’s not just been told he died in the 1800’s and then was reincarnated, came back for his boyfriend and was going to become a werewolf.” He looks pointedly at Mikey and Pete’s entangled fingers. Ray makes a weak noise of surprise and his figure wavers a little. “which,” Gerard goes on, “What colour are you? Cause I have some new pencils, and I might be able to-“

“He’s like a tan colour.” Mikey supplies in a monotone. “With lighter bits in some places and darker markings on his face.”

“Awesome,” Gerard says dazedly, waving his hands at Frank. “Frank, can you get me some paper, I gotta…” He pulls a bunch of pencils out of a half open drawer and shoves his red hair out of his eyes.

“Um, hello,” Ray says. Gerard scribbles away at the paper. Frank points at something on the paper and makes a noise of approval. “I get that you’re all like, freaky immortal teens with super powers, but why am I dead but not dead?”

“Maybe it’s _your_ super power?” Pete wonders, looking at the other guys. He’s not sure if that’s a valid answer.

Gerard answers around the four pencils in his mouth. He shoves a piece of paper at Frank and takes another. “Stay right there.” He says to Ray. “I can’t do Pete because I haven’t seen him.”

“Um, maybe,” Mikey says, because clearly Gerard is not paying attention. “Ghosts can do things normal humans can’t, generally. I mean, I’ve never met one. But going by general horror movie knowledge.”

A book flies through Ray’s stomach, hitting the wall behind him. “Excuse me,” Ray says, putting his hands on his hips and glaring at Pete.

“Jesus Christ.” Mikey says, “I can see him now.”

“Pete,” Gerard tsks. “That’s Lindsey’s accounts book,”

“Sorry, I wanted to see if it would go through him.”

“I still can’t see him,” Frank pouts.

“Walk through the wall!” Pete exclaims, jabbing a finger at Ray.

Ray sighs but does it, disappearing for a second and then appearing back through, looking bored. Frank shakes his head no.

“I think you’re becoming more corporeal the stronger your emotions, because you got angry when Pete threw the book at you, and appeared to Pete when we opened the boot and you saw your body. Try getting pissed off.” Gerard suggests.

“I can’t just get pissed off!” Ray exclaims. “Can’t you inflict it or whatever you do with your powers? What are the rest of you anyway?”

“Sandman,” Mikey sits down in a paint splattered chair. “I have power over dreams and sleeping.”

Pete plops down on top of Mikey and ignores his grumble of _Pete, you’re_ _heavy_ and presses a sloppy kiss to his temple. “Newly discovered werewolf.”

“Vampire,” Frank says happily to the air, and makes his fangs appear. Ray’s form wavers again as he makes a weak grimace.

“I can’t see him again,” Mikey says, and he’s barely visible to Pete too now. Ray screws up his face in concentration and grows more opaque.

“Better?” He asks.

“Yeah,” Mikey nods, swatting away Pete, who’s tugging at his stupidly perfect hair and ruining it. “ _Pete,”_

“I can see something,” Frank squints. “Like, some white shit hovering there.” Gerard hands him another sheet of paper as Frank points at Ray.

“I think…” Ray does the screwed up face thing again and Pete pokes Mikey’s cheek. Mikey rolls his eyes with a smile and swats him away again.

“Oh, that is so cool,” Frank says, leaping up and shoving his hand through Ray’s chest. “You’re like, totally dead, dude!”

“I _know_.” Ray says, and bursts into tears.

*

Clara comes home looking more alive, and everyone but her and Ray is sent upstairs. Pete catches her hugging Ray for a really long time, her fingers disappearing into his hair, and it doesn’t look like she’s letting go for a while. He feels a sad sort of happy; like the way you feel at weddings.

Lindsey makes them all food and Mikey takes Pete up to his room with the photo book he promised to show him yesterday. The sun is setting, and the guest room is filled with a dusty orange glow. Pete gets back into the rumpled, unmade bed and spreads the book out on his lap, leaning into Mikey.

The photo book is filled to the brim, just like The Book, and someone has taped pictures over pictures, and shoved old Polaroids in there loosely. 

“Clara likes the idea of it all being in one book; we all just humour her. It’s starting to get annoying but that’s a conversation someone else can have with her another day.”

“Is there pictures of me in here?”

“There’s three.” Mikey says, leaning over Pete and turning the pages towards the back. “They didn’t take a lot of pictures back then, of course, but there’s this one of you and your family…” He opens the book to a photo with a group, all in the old suits and dresses. A younger Pete is standing next to a younger girl, his natural curly hair poking out under a cap.

“You were thirteen there, I think. You stole it to remember your family when you came away with me.”

Mikey flips a few more pages. “These are organised by date, by the way, and there’s this one you took with Lindsey. You guys used to say you were siblings and Clara was your step-sister, but after you died Clara and Lindsey became sisters, normally. Lindsey used to decide all the fake names and stuff.”

Pete looks at the picture of Lindsey and him. He stands behind her sitting on a chair, his hands on her shoulders. “Is Mikey your real name?”

“Yes. Well, it’s really Michael, but yeah. We go back to our real names every so often, usually at different times, but when Clara found you we decided to all go back at once.”

Pete points to the picture in the corner of the book. Mikey looks at it and smiles.

“Us. We didn’t take pictures because it cost a lot and people would ask questions if it were just us two. But that one, jeez. You actually robbed a fucking general store, came back with a bag of coins and told me we were taking a damn picture together to show our three kids. I think you were planning on stealing those too, or maybe no one ever gave you that chat.” Pete punches Mikey in the arm. Mikey chuckles. “We stopped in a small town on our way to D.C and got someone to take it. We told them we were brothers so we could touch, but they still thought we were weird. People didn’t really smile in pictures back then, because it took so long to take the photo, but you couldn’t stop grinning the whole time.”

The picture is of the two of them on an uncomfortable looking couch, and Pete is grinning widely. Mikey isn’t smiling, but his eyes are happy and his hand is resting on Pete’s leg.

Pete looks at the real Mikey, the one next to him, and Mikey says, really softly: “You died three months later.”

Pete slowly leans in and presses his nose to Mikey’s hair. He smells the pine and the unwashed sheets and maybe cigarettes, and most importantly the vanilla. Pete feels Mikey let out a tortured breath, and Pete reaches over and touches his jaw.

“I love you.” He says, not softly or like it’s a secret they should hide behind closed doors and in the gaps between their thighs. He doesn’t say it dramatically, like it’s all he’s ever been waiting for and it will solve everything. He doesn’t say it like he’s been waiting to say it, because he hasn’t. He’s just realised it now, and Pete has to say it because that’s a thing you tell someone. If you love someone, you tell them. So he says it plain and simple, so Mikey knows, and then maybe Pete’s repeating himself, because once isn’t enough. He likes the words and how they taste in his mouth and he likes the little gasp Mikey makes and the way he can hear his heart speed up. “I love you I love you iloveyou, Mikeyway. Let’s get married and have three kids,” Pete jokes, and Mikey surges up and kisses him messily on the mouth.

Mikey giggles against Pete’s lips, a startled noise that makes hot air fan out from his mouth. Pete bites on his bottom lip and Mikey groans and mumbles something against Pete’s mouth that Pete doesn’t understand, but it feels like an _I love you too_ and Pete pushes him onto his back, pressing his tongue inside Mikey’s mouth. Mikey keens against him, a low whine moving between their mouths. Pete hooks a leg over Mikey and straddles him, sliding his hands to the bottom of Mikey’s shirt. Mikey rakes his hands over Pete’s back and Pete feels his whole body thrum with need.

“Pete,” Mikey says breathlessly. Pete’s dick presses forward into the hard front of Mikey’s jeans and all of it; the heat, the friction, Pete’s mouth on Mikey’s, makes Mikey writher and cry out incoherently. Pete wants him like this forever, squirming and panting underneath him and begging with little whines and whimpers. Pete’s veins thrum and he jerks forward, whimpering with Mikey this time.

“Never wear clothes again,” He says gruffly as he pulls his shirt over Mikey’s head, and Mikey shakes a little with laughter underneath him. Pete dips to kiss a scar below Mikey’s collar bone and Mikey’s chuckle turns into a shivery _oh_.

"Where did you get this?" Pete asks, mouthing over the scar and kissing the base of Mikey's neck. "And this one?" He licks at the thin, long one on Mikey's shoulder.

"A charge – _huh-_ did that with their - _ugh_ \- claws. My shoulder... I think I got pushed into something..." Pete catches Mikey's nipple in his teeth and runs a finger over the one on Mikey's side. Mikey chokes back a moan, gripping Pete’s hair.

"They're everywhere." Pete murmurs.

"Being alive for 200 years comes with some scrapes," Mikey says thickly as Pete kisses around his bellybutton. Mikey tugs at his hair and jerks his hips up

"What about here?" Pete traces a finger over the scar on Mikey's forearm. It's barely noticeable, faded and just slightly raised.

"You-uhhh...you did that," he stutters out, fisting the sheets in his hands. "After the charge hurt you and you wouldn't stop bleeding and Clara couldn't... You were scared and you were holding on so tight you made a gash in my skin, and, and- _nghh.”_

Pete has decided that there will be no more talking , so he resorts to the usual method of shutting Mikey up and moves up to kiss Mikey, curling his fingers in his hair and moaning against his lips, vibrating the fit of their mouth. Mikey pulls Pete's shirt off too, careful not to touch his back.

"They don't hurt." Pete says, and Mikey makes a noise of approval as he fumbles at Pete's belt buckle. Pete pulls at Mikey's pyjama pants, tugging them down over his knees and off his ankles, stopping to -finally!-press an open mouthed kiss to each of Mikey's hipbones, sucking on one side and biting down. Mikey yanks at Pete's hair with a groan and flips them over, tugging Pete up and switching their positions. He runs his hands all over Pete’s body frantically, panting, eyes raking over Pete’s skin. Pete groans back as Mikey tugs his head back with a fistful of his hair and kisses his throat.

Mikey grabs his wrists and slams them up beside Pete's head, and Pete moans so loud he's sure it's vibrating off the walls and all the way down to his dick. It's pressing painfully against the zipper of his jeans, and he looks up at Mikey and chokes on a breath, writhing frantically under Mikey.

“Please, Mikey.” He begs, looking down at his stupid jeans and wondering why the fuck he’s still wearing them.

"Oh," Mikey says between making marks along the base of Pete's neck, and somewhere in the back of his mind Pete decides he wants those marks there forever, like a necklace of stylised bite marks. "You still like this, huh?" Mikey murmurs filthily, and Pete moans again in response, testing Mikey's grip on his wrists. Mikey just makes a throaty noise in response and holds him down harder, sucking Pete's nipple into his mouth.

Pete jerks his hips up and presses his boner into Mikey's, and he needs his pants off now. _Now_.

"Mikey, Jesus, can you-oh my god, okay..."

Mikey undoes Pete belt buckle quickly, mouthing at his neck and whispering something that Pete loses track of as soon as Mikey yanks his pants down and wraps his hand back down around Pete's left wrist, his right tugging out Pete's dick with more words Pete's not hearing clearly. Pete moans something back incoherently, and he hears the word "fuck" before Mikey licks a strip up the length of Pete's dick and Pete has to bite his lip to stop himself from moaning so loud the whole house can hear. He shuts his eyes and tries to focus on not coming before Mikey even gets him in his mouth properly and Mikey makes a disapproving noise and stops tonguing the head.

"Mikey," Pete whines, almost hysterically.

"Open your eyes," Mikey says briskly, and Pete does, opens them to see Mikey looking up at him with dark eyes and full blown pupils, his mouth wet with spit and precome and shining in the setting sun coming through the window.

“Oh, fuck.” Pete pants, his hips jerking up as Mikey smirks and starts licking at it again.

“Stop teasing, fucker,” Pete grabs the hair at the back of Mikey’s hair. Mikey makes a humming noise and sinks down Pete’s length, wrapping his hand around the base and pulling back off slickly. Pete resists the urge to roll his head back into the pillow and holds his head still, watching Mikey, sucking his fingers into his mouth to stop the little whimpers that are escaping out of his mouth.

Pete isn’t being held down anymore, but the alternative is so much better, because Mikey’s other hand is sinking lower and pressing between his legs, a finger curling inside his ass. Pete chokes out a strangled moan and arches his back into it. Warmth blooms in his upper thighs.

Mikey pulls off his dick and Pete misses his mouth, but he’s too busy making little noises and biting down on his fingers to complain as Mikey pushes another finger inside him and Pete inhales sharply.

“Can I fuck you?’ Mikey asks, and Pete nods desperately. Mikey presses in another finger.

“Holy shit,” Pete husks, and Mikey laughs silkily, and Pete has a moment of sheer, incredulous bliss as he stares up at him. Mikey looks so…gorgeous in this light; fuck, in all light. He wonders how Mikey has been waiting so long for _him;_ boring, annoying Pete.

Mikey kisses him as Pete jerks down onto his fingers, and the hot press of Mikey’s chest against his makes them both gasp throatily.

“I still haven’t even got your cock in my mouth.” Pete whines a little, trying to sink down deeper on Mikey’s fingers, and Mikey rewards him by curling them up a little and stroking his prostate. Pete cries out into Mikey’s shoulder, and bites down on the skin there to muffle it. Mikey makes a beautiful sound and Pete husks something incoherent.

“Fucking later, Pete, fuck.”

Pete feels so fucking lost as soon as Mikey pulls his fingers out of him, but he watches Mikey reach over into his drawer and slick his cock up with lube and roll the condom on, and Pete almost blows his load when Mikey smiles up at him from under his lashes and makes this filthy noise as he runs a thumb over the head. Pete scrambles up and shoves his hand away, straddling Mikey and steadying himself with two hands on either of Mikey’s shoulders.

“Oh, god,” Mikey drawls, throwing his head back as Pete lines himself up and begins to sink down on his cock. Pete goes as slow as he can, because he’s done this enough times it doesn’t hurt too bad, but he wants to feel all of this, every millimetre.

Pete pulls Mikey’s head forward and kisses him lazily, his tongue licking inside slowly. When Mikey’s fully inside Pete they both still for a second. Pete’s whole body trembles, Mikey’s hands splayed out on his back, his nose pressed to Pete’s chest. Pete’s got his face in Mikey’s hair and Mikey’s skin pressing up to him everywhere and it’s utterly, without question, perfect.

“I love you so, so much.” Mikey breathes, and they are everything to Pete in that moment, all wrapped up in each other. Pete leans down and says against Mikey’s lips:

“I love you too,” and Pete doesn’t remember, not the memories but, his body or his soul, or somewhere in between, it remembers something; how he felt, or what they once were, because Pete feels like he’s loved Mikey forever. He traps all of this up in those four words and Mikey understands.

Pete rocks forward and they groan together. Mikey reaches down and wraps a hand around Pete’s dick and moves it in time with Pete’s rocking. It’s not rushed, just slow and steady, and the air is filled with little grunts and moans and whimpers and whispers of _yes_ and _fuck._ Their bodies shine with sweat and hands grab at hips and thighs and shoulders and the backs of necks. Mikey comes pressed into Pete’s chest and Pete wraps his arms around him and lets Mikey tug him to the end, coming with a soft exclamation into Mikey’s hair.

They fall asleep wrapped up in each other too.


	12. Epilogue

Clara watches Pete and Patrick from the car, lighting another smoke. She can see all the boxes in the back if she looks in the rear view mirror, but this time it doesn’t feel so routine and similar. Things are different now. Pete is all grown up and in love and she can finally breathe properly for the first time in years.

Pete’s giving Patrick some poetic speech about life and friendship on the front porch before he has to get in the truck and they leave this shitty house forever. She’s bet ten bucks it takes at least five minutes for Patrick to start crying.

“You’re a dirty addict.” Ray grumbles next to her. More things that have changed; today she’s got a ghost sitting next to her, making sarcastic comments. He waves his hand dramatically around the car, trying to disperse the smoke that’s filling up the cab of the pickup truck. She really has to dump this shitty thing, but she can’t bring herself to do it.

“Shush.” She says, waving a hand at him. “You aren’t even meant to be here.” She rolls the window down anyway.

“Patrick can’t see me; what does it matter?” Ray says. She wants to sell the truck actually, but there are some mildly incriminating blood stains on the passenger seat and she’s not sure how much someone would actually pay for this piece of crap.

“You should’ve gone with Lindsey and the others; there’s no point in them getting to Wisteria first. Not without you.”

Ray is quiet as they both watch Pete grab Patrick and pull him into a hug. Patrick throws an embarrassed glance at Clara, but she just looks away and she hears Pete complaining about Patrick’s lack of participation in the hug. Ray has bet three minutes, and it’s inching dangerously close to that time. Clara crosses her fingers that Patrick can hold back longer.

“Are you sure you guys want to leave? You could both stay…” Ray trails off.

“Well, we can’t now you’ve decided to come with us and not the others; you’ve no way of getting there if we stay.” She teases. Patrick spots her talking to what looks like herself and gives her an odd look. She ignores it.

“Honestly, don’t be silly, Ray,” She adds. “I’m not leaving them all again, and I’m not leaving you. I want to come.” She says firmly, chucking the cigarette out the window and looking over at him. Pete’s gotten all weepy now, she can hear it, and that’s going to set Patrick off. Four minutes.

“Besides,” She says, patting his hand. “Pete won’t leave Mikey. He wants to come. He hates this house, and he hates school. He likes Patrick a heck of a lot, but maybe they’ll meet again.”

Patrick bursts into tears, pressing his face into cardigan covered hands. Five minutes. “Motherfucker,” Ray frowns, digging in his pocket and handing her ten bucks. Clara whoops in delight and then artfully arranges her features into one of sympathy as Pete turns and gives her dirty look.

“You’re a bad person,” Ray says lightly.

“So are you,” She shoots back, and they grin at each other for a second too long. Pete knocks on Ray’s door and they both look away.

“I’m ready.” He says, getting in and waving at Patrick through the front window. Patrick waves back weepily from the front steps.

“I’m going to miss it.” Pete says, after they’ve gotten out onto the highway and Clara’s managed to sneak another smoke before Ray starts complaining again.

“I know,” She says, and then everything goes blurry because she’s fucking crying. “God dammit.”

Pete laughs at her as she wipes at her eyes, and Ray hands her another smoke wordlessly. She wraps her hand around her cross and says a similar prayer to the one she said five years ago.

“So, what is Wisteria, anyway?” Pete says, and Clara grins.

“Well...” she begins. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone that read this; i love each of you so so much. Bless xx


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